Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today (or if you already work from home, before you shutdown your laptop).
MORTGAGE/LOAN RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today.
TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Unity Money raised its Everyday Saver rates today.
LOW CONFIDENCE BUT AN IMPROVEMENT
The November ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence survey rose in a notable way, but it is still at a very negative and subdued level. However, it has risen consistently since the trough in December 2022. The main reason for the improvement was around sentiment about buying a major household item, but the ANZ analysys warn about making too much of that jump. The survey's inflation expectations are unchanged at 4.6%, and it is this stickness that might concern the RBNZ readers.
HIGH STOCKS
Realestate.co.nz monitoring shows that the stock of houses for sale is rising again, after falling for most of 2023 on a national basis. There are 22 weeks of sales in agents' inventories. That is more than 5 months of sales at the current rate. It is more than the national average in Auckland, the Bay of Plenty, and Waikato, and less in Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin.
TINY BUT WORTH WATCHING
Centrix credit stress monitoring for November shows that "mortgage accounts past due were up 25% year-on-year" but this is more to do with a very low base last year. Levels are just back to 2021 levels and are still lower than pre-pandemic levels. Percentage changes can look sharp when the numbers are very low. About 19,000 mortgage borrowers have past due balances out of more than 1 mln households with mortgages. But it certainly is worth watching.
KOREAN EXPORTS EXPAND AGAIN
South Korea today released export data for November and it is very encouraging for global trade. Overall exports rose +7.8% from a year ago to a 14-month high and acing market expectations of a +4.7% rise. This was the second consecutive month of expansion in exports, marking the fastest growth since July 2022. amid an improvement in sales of global chip sales, with semiconductor exports rising for the first time in 16 months. Sales of semiconductors grew +12.9%, while exports of car and rechargeable batteries surged by +21.5% and +24.8%, respectively.
SWAPS RISE
Wholesale swap rates probably rose today. However, the key reaction will come at the close. Our chart will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bp at 5.63% and now +13 bps above the OCR. The Australian 10 year bond yield is up a sharp +14 bps from this time yesterday to 4.49%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 2.70%. And the NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +11 bps at 5.09%, while the earlier RBNZ fixing was at 5.01% which was up +8 bps today. The UST 10 year yield is now at 4.33% and up +8 bps from yesterday. The UST 2yr is now at 4.68% so that key curve inversion is much less at -35 bps.
EQUITIES MIXED, NZX STARS
The NZX50 is little-changed in late trade today but heading for a rare +1.1% weekly gain. This is the star of the markets we follow. The ASX200 is down -0.4% in afternoon trade and heading for a minor +0.3% weekly gain. Tokyo has opened unchanged again today heading for a -0.6% weekly retreat. Hong Kong is down -0.3% at their open compounding an eye-watering weekly dump of -3.9%. Shanghai is down a minor -0.1% and heading for a much lesser -0.4% dip. Singapore has opened up +0.4% on high volume for a +0.5% weekly rise. Earlier today on Wall Street, the S&P500 closed up +0.4% with a late recovery. It wened its month up +7.8% which is a notable rally. So far this year it is up +19.5%, almost a bull run.
GOLD DIPS AGAIN
In early Asian trade, gold is now at US$2041/oz and down -US$4 from yesterday. Earlier it closed at US$2036/oz in New York and earlier still at US$2035/oz in London.
NZD FIRM
The Kiwi dollar is marginally firmer than this time yesterday at just under 61.9 USc. Against the Aussie we have risen to 93.4 AUc. Against the euro we are up to 56.8 euro cents. That means the TWI-5 is at 70.7 and slightly firmer.
BITCOIN MEANDERS ON
The bitcoin price has moved up slightly today, now at US$37,937 and +0.5% higher than this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been low at just on +/- 0.8%.
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23 Comments
How does gold look on an inflation adjusted basis, is it at an all-time high?
I have no idea. "Adjusted for inflation" is somewhat meaningless to me, unless you want to compare it to a fiat currency's purchasing power. In terms of M2 money supply, the gold price would be considered undervalued I suspect.
You're a workhorse of the comments section, J.C. I enjoy reading the content you bring us, and I like how you add your own key observations and views.
PDK has his own style. He storms in. He's helped me adjust my thinking away from abstractions like money and towards considering energy as fundamental.
Wolfie Richter reports that new single family home prices in the U.S. down by 18% yoy. And sales vol is arguably falling off a cliff. New home sales are competing with sales of existing housing stock.
Could you imagine the shrieks of horror and destruction in discretionary spend and wealth if that happened in Nu' Zillun? Don't think I could.
So the median price of new single-family houses sold in October fell by 3.1% from September, to $409,300 (red line), the lowest since August 2021, down by 17.6% from a year ago, which had been the peak, according to data from the Census Bureau today. The three-month moving average is down by nearly 12% from its peak in December last year (green).
These are contract prices and do not include the costs of mortgage-rate buydowns and other incentives such as free upgrades. But they do reflect the lower price points due to smaller footprints and the “de-amenitizing.”
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/11/27/prices-of-new-houses-drop-further-18-…
Newsweek headline and article from 2017.
Bitcoin Mining on Track to Consume All of the World's Energy by 2020
A network that underpins the virtual currency bitcoin is projected to require all of the world's current energy production in order to support itself within three years, according to estimates.
When the media is allowed to get away with this, it's no wonder our water cooler engagements are so wild.
https://www.newsweek.com/bitcoin-mining-track-consume-worlds-energy-202…
Strategist Charlie Bilello states the average price of a used Tesla has declined 16 months in a row, moving from a record high of $67,900 in July 2022 to a record low of $39,002 today (-43%).
https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/1730274239184503078
Nine of the ten fastest depreciating cars in the the US are EV's - some as high as 38% year one. They are far more expensive to insure and a nightmare to charge away from your primary residence. They are also at the bottom of reliability surveys.
Now I really quite like them but we need to be honest, they are a niche vehicle.
I'd be very cautious about taking reliability surveys too seriously. The fossil fuel industry is spending mega bucks trying to undermine a transition to electric vehicles. They bought out our current government easily as did the tobacco industry and pharma given their policy positions.
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