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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; Govt lets its fiscal belt out, landlords face insulation deadline, Fonterra reviews more assets, swaps and dollar lower

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; Govt lets its fiscal belt out, landlords face insulation deadline, Fonterra reviews more assets, swaps and dollar lower

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
None

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
The Co-operative Bank dropped their one-month rate from 2% to 1.9% and their online call account from 1% to 0.9%.  

MORE ROOM TO SPEND
The Government's ditching its restrictive 20% of GDP debt target from 2021 in favour of a "range" from between 15% to 25%. At the upper end of that limit it will give the Government room to borrow billions of dollars more. The National Party says Finance Minister Grant Robertson has "thrown in the towel".

NO EXTENSION FOR LANDLORDS
Landlords have just over a month to ensure their rental properties meet the 2016 insulation requirements or face exemplary damages of up to $4,000, and Tenancy Compliance and Investigations says there will be no room for extensions. From 1 July 2019, a landlord who has not installed ceiling and floor insulation where reasonably practicable will be in breach of the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) and may face the Tenancy Tribunal. “The RTA does not allow for extensions, and this would be unfair to those landlords who have acted in time to do the right thing,” says Peter Hackshaw, Acting National Manager, Tenancy Compliance and Investigations (TCIT).

FONTERRA'S CAUTIOUS MILK PRICE FORECAST
Fonterra's opening milk price forecast for the new season is both conservative and broad, giving a range of possible outcomes from $6.25-$7.25. Meanwhile the struggling co-operative's downgraded its forecast earnings for the July financial year, says it will close a plant in Australia, and has put up for strategic review its China dairy farms.

AVANTI FINANCE EYES RMBS ISSUE
Westpac says it has been hired by Avanti Finance Ltd to arrange a series of investor meetings. The bank says a New Zealand residential mortgage backed securities, or RMBS, issue from Avanti may follow subject to market conditions.

RBNZ BANK CAPITAL PLANS 'UNWORKABLE'
Kiwibank, The Co-operative Bank, SBS Bank and TSB, four New Zealand owned banks, say the fact the Reserve Bank's capital proposals seek to both materially increase the required level of capital for banks and decrease available capital sources, is a combination that's unworkable for them.

TAMAKIS FORM POLITICAL PARTY
Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki is launching a political party – Coalition New Zealand. The party, to be led by his wife Hannah Tamaki, will promote family values and target the “silent majority of New Zealanders believed to be unhappy with where society is heading. It won’t be a “Christian Party”. The Tamakis won’t reveal the seats the party will contest or the candidates it will stand. They said funding would come from members and the community, not Destiny Church.

LOCAL SWAPS EDGE LOWER 
Local swap rates are edging down today pretty much across the curve. The UST 10yr rate is at 2.38%, down 4 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is down 7 bps at 1.58%, the China Govt 10yr is unchanged at 3.33%, while the New Zealand Govt 10yr is down 6bps at 1.76%. (All changes from this time yesterday.) The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.71%.

NZ DOLLAR DRIFTS 
The NZ dollar is down a touch at 64.9 USc, which is about 0.1c down on this time yesterday. Against the Aussie we are down by a similar amount at 94.4 AUc. Against the Euro, we are about the same at just under 58.2 euro cents. 

BITCOIN DOWN 
Bitcoin's dropped about 3.5% in the past 24 hours and has taken most of the other cryptocurrencies down with it. Bitcoin was recently at US$7,670. Bitcoin is tracked in the chart below.

This chart is animated here.

Daily exchange rates

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Source: CoinDesk

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8 Comments

NZD 64.89 USc

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NZDM tendered a $150 million reopening of the 2.75% 15/04/2025s at an average weighted yield of 1.4452%. Virtually unchanged from the previous $200m same maturity reopening tender held on 28 March 2019, which sold at 1.4456%.

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NZD represents how others value what we say & do. It's going down.

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Great interview with the CIO of Australian-based hedge fund Bronte Capital about the depth of the scamming and bad behavior in the Aussie housing bubble.

“‘If you wanted to borrow eight or nine times your income they would send you to someone else who knew all the loopholes and was playing fast and loose. The blokes who could ‘get things done’, there were tricks for doing it, mechanisms for faking. They would tell you where the eaknesses were in banks’ monitoring. The most extreme one was fake tax returns, literally software to develop them.'”

“Lending standards were ‘bad everywhere’ but ‘the further we went away from the CBD the more insane the bank branch officers or brokers were,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t even a little bit worse, it was a lot worse. The fantasy was deeper. People construct fantasies around whatever the asset bubble is. I expected the bubble to be in the inner part where houses are expensive. I completely changed my mind. The bubble is in the outer part. It affects ordinary people. ‘”

https://thejollyswagmen.com/new-blog/johnhemptonbubbleweek

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Bombay stock exchange index, SENSEX rose 2 1/4% intra-day to a new high of 40k on early election count indicating that ruling party is set to form a strong majority for another 5 years.

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Silent majority???. I'd say they will poll between 1 and 2.5 %.

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Just a question regarding insulation. We've got a house that's missing the under floor insulation but have given three months notice to the tennants as we are knocking down the house to build some apartments.are we exempt from having to provide the under floor insulation?

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Yes you are exempt, as long as you have applied for a building or resource consent.

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