A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; TD rate changes, higher commodity prices, Drury moves on, Shortt moves up, WMP prices fragile, swaps firm, NZD up

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
SBS Bank raised its eight month offer to 3.45%. Asset Finance trimmed its two year offer to 5.20%.

HIGHER VOLUMES, LOWER PRICES
Auckland realtor Barfoot & Thompson's average price eased back -2.4% in February and is now lower than it was 12 months ago having slipped -$25,000 in a year. Median prices are stable however and that suggests it is the top end that soft. Their drop-out rate is 17.5% which is its average since mid 2013. (Prior to that, its average drop-out rate was 10% going back to 2009.) Barfoot's February volumes were 665 and higher than the 556 it sold in February 2017.

KICKING ON HIGHER
The February commodity price tracking by ANZ has come in with lifts in both their World and NZD indexes. This is how they see it: "The ANZ Commodity Price Index rose +2.8% m/m in February, kicking on from the +0.7% gain in January. The lift was fairly broad-based, although the dairy group provided the major thrust, with a +6% gain. Despite some intra-month volatility, the NZD was broadly steady against major trading partners in the month (NZD TWI up 0.3% m/m), which saw the NZD commodity price index lift +2.4%. This is the first lift in NZD prices since November."

CHANGE AT THE TOP
Rod Drury has resigned as Xero's CEO today, to be replaced by Aussie Steve Vamos (and currently a director of Fletcher Building, among others, and has been a regional manager for Apple and Microsoft). Drury will become a Non-Exceutive Director at Xero. Xero's shares slipped -3.5% on the news on the ASX where they are now listed.

ON THE WAY UP
Vittoria Shortt, who succeeded Barbara Chapman as ASB's CEO last month, has now also been appointed as an ASB director.

ON THE WAY UP? II
In data released in Australia today (as part of their large Business Indicator series, 5676.0), Aussie businesses saw their wage & salary costs rise by +2.4% in 2017 over 2016, but in the December quarter they rose +4.2% over the same quarter a year ago. At the high end were rises in the financial sector (up +5.9% in the December quarter from a year ago) and in the real estate sector up +6.2% on the same basis. Mining saw a +3.4% rise.

ON THE WAY DOWN?
We have another dairy auction this week and the deriavtives market is signaling that WMP prices may be -3.5% lower than on February 21.

A STINKER?
In case you missed it on Saturday, sales of new passenger vehicles in New Zealand were -7.9% lower in February 2018 than the same month a year ago. But SUVs took a remarkable 59.1% share of that. Sedans are now a minority segment. The sales of commercial vehicles continued its record setting trend, up +10.3% on the same month a year ago, taking the annual rate to a new record and +14.1% higher than the equivalent period last year. (Also, the turning away of some car carriers because of stink bug infestation may have affected February sales.) 

BENCHMARK INTEREST RATES HIGHER
Wholesale swap rates have risen today in a slightly steeper manner. The two year is up +1 bp, the five year is up +1 bp, and the ten year is up +2 bps. The UST 10yr started the week at 2.87% but is now down to 2.84%. The Aussie Govt 10 yr is unchanged at 2.73%. The China 10 yr is up sharply by +5 bps to 3.90% while the NZ Govt 10 yr is up +3 bps to 3.00%. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp yet again and now at 1.90%.

BITCOIN UP
The bitcoin price is now at US$11,458 or +3.0% higher than this time on Friday.

NZ DOLLAR RISES
The Kiwi dollar is up today. It is now at 72.3 USc, but it is not rising as fast as the AUD is against the greenback so we are at 93.2 AUc and have slipped also against the euro at 58.6 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 just on 73.4.

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