A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; no rate changes, Barfoots quiet, building consents rise, Wellington rents higher, Makhlouf off, swaps rise, NZD slips, & more

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Nothing to report today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes here either.

A QUIET APRIL
Sales at Auckland's largest real estate agency,Barfoot & Thompson, appear to be following the usual seasonal trend and took a dip in April, but selling prices were steady. But sales volumes were down almost -9% compared to the same month a year ago.

A QUIETER MARCH
Statistics NZ says the number of residential properties sold to overseas buyers plummeted in the March quarter after the foreign buyer ban came fully into place.

HOME BUILDING PACE RISING
New dwelling consent activity remains strong with the number of new consents issued nationally more than doubling over the last five years. In Auckland, there has been a big year-on-year rise in consents on the North Shore. Unfortunately that has been undermined by a big fall in Manukau.

WELLINGTON A HOTTER RENTAL MARKET
The latest update to rent levels shows little change, although nationally a three bedroon house now commands $470/week (median) down from its record high $480/week in March. There was little change in Auckland or Christchurch, but Wellington median rents rose again to US$667/week and that is now +$17/week higher than the equivalent Auckland level.

NON-RESIDENTIAL BUILDING PIPELINE HOLDING
There was a drop in March non-residential building consents. This is a summary of this data from Infometrics: "The monthly value of non-residential consents was down -5.9% ($42 mln) from March last year and -5.2% (seasonally adjusted) from February’s strong result. Consents in Auckland dropped -$57 mln from last March, primarily due to declines in factory, hotel, and social, cultural, and religious consents. The value of consents in Canterbury fell -$37 mln, pulled down by reductions in Christchurch in shop, office, and social, cultural, and religious consents. Bay of Plenty, Otago, and Wellington all recorded increases in consent values of over +$20 mln compared with March 2018." They do note however that for the full quarter, "total activity for the quarter came in above our forecasts for most building types, indicating an ongoing pipeline of work for the industry."

SIX WEEKS TO MAKE SURE YOU QUALIFY
KiwiSaver members have six weeks to make sure they qualify to receive the government’s annual contribution of $521. As long as they’ve contributed at least $1043 in the year to June 30 they’ll receive the full amount from the government. The $521 will appear in their KiwiSaver account in July or August. The CFFC says last year $785 mln, or almost half of the money the government allocated for its contribution to KiwiSaver members went unclaimed.

JAILED
A Christchurch businessman who lost almost $900,000 gambling has been sentenced to three years imprisonment after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges.

HALF RATIONS
$100 mln of NZGB inflation-linked 21 year bonds were tendered today, drawing $162 mln in bids. 16 of the 29 bidders were successful and the average yield they are getting is CPI inflation plus 1.27% pa. That is the lowest ever for the twenty such tenders of this maturity. (The highest was 2.36% plus inflation for winning bidders in August 2017.)

MAKHLOUF OFF
[Updated]: Treasury Secretary and CEO, Gabriel Makhlouf, will take up a new job as Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland shortly after the Government delivers its first “Wellbeing Budget” on May 30. Makhlouf’s last day at Treasury will be June 27 – the date gazetted when he was appointed in 2016 to his second term in the role. He will start at the Central Bank of Ireland in September. Finance Minister Grant Robertson says Makhlouf’s legacy will be the work he has done spearheading the Living Standards Framework, which provides a number of indicators to help Treasury advise successive governments on the likely effects of their policy choices.

LOSS RISKS
In Australia, regulator APRA has written to all insurers who provide Disability Income Insurance. It was it is 'demanding' to know how insurers planned to make it sustainable given they have collectively lost AU$2.5 bln in this product in the past five years. Clearly large premium increases are coming (in Australia) for this cover.

MARKET UPDATES
At the end of the Wall Street session today, equity prices suddenly slumped and ended the day the S&P500 was down -0.8%. So far today, the NZX50 is up +0.5% while the ASX200 is down -0.5%. Tokyo is closed for a national holiday today, while Hong Kong is up +0.6% and Shanghai is up +0.5% in very early trade.

LOCAL SWAP RATES
Local swap rates recovered some of yesterday's sharp fall, today up about +2 bps across the curve. The UST 10yr rate is at 2.50%, down -3 bps. Their 2-10 curve is narrower at +19 bps and their negative 1-5 curve now at -8 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is down again today to 1.79% (unchanged), the China Govt 10yr is also unchanged at 3.42%, while the New Zealand Govt 10yr is up +3 bps at 1.91%. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp at 1.79%.

NZ DOLLAR SLIPS AGAIN
The NZ dollar is marginally lower at 66.3 USc compared with this time yesterday although up slightly from the open this morning. Against the Aussie we are fractionally firmer at 94.5 AUc. We are also soft at 59.2 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now at 71.2.

BITCOIN HOLDS
Bitcoin is little-changed today at US$5,323. Bitcoin is tracked in the chart below.

This chart is animated here. For previous users, the animation process has been updated and works better now.