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.
TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
SBS has ended its market-leading (among the banks) 6.5%, six-month special rate - dropping that down to be more 'among the pack' at 6.10%, while SBS's other TD rates have been trimmed by between 5 and 20 basis points, with the one-year rate unchanged at 6.05% .
The Co-operative Bank also looked at its six-month TD rate and dropped it from 6.15% to 6.10%.
ONLINE GAMBLING BLOCK
Westpac NZ has introduced an optional online gambling block for customers. Westpac NZ Manager Financial Inclusion and Vulnerability, Louisa Brock, says the block is something customers asked for. Westpac says from 26 June - 25 September 2023, its customers spent $136.8 million with online gambling merchants (compared with just $3.2 million spent at physical gambling locations in that period). Nearly half of that online spend was with TAB and Lotto. Customers who want the block can call the bank or visit a branch to request a gambling block – the block will then be applied to all their credit/debit cards.
'WEAKNESS OF CONSUMER SENTIMENT' SEES KATHMANDU TAKE A HIT
KMD Brands the NZX-listed parent of the Kathmandu, Rip Curl and Oboz labels has slumped to a $9.7 million half-year loss, with sales at Kathmandu being particularly savaged - dropping 22.9% in Australia and 15.9% in New Zealand and Kathmandu online sales plunging 36.9%. Managing Director Michael Daly said KMD Brands "continued to experience the effects of weakness in consumer sentiment" with total group sales 14.5% below last year’s record. "Weaker consumer sentiment, the warmest winter on record in Australia and an over-reliance on winter weight product led to a disappointing first half for Kathmandu".
REDUCED ROAD USER CHARGE FOR PLUG-IN HYBRIDS
The Government's now agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. "The reduced RUC rate for PHEVs is a temporary measure to lessen distortions while we get to work on transitioning the entire vehicle fleet to the road user charges system and away from fuel excise."
3G OR NOT 3G - THE TELCO INDUSTRY'S HEADACHE
The older 3G technology dating from 2001, which telcos would like to move away from, is turning out to be harder to kill than expected. In our part of the world, it's fair to say that the telecommunications industry has not managed the 3G network closures well, with late, confusing and inadequate communication.
AUCKLAND HOUSING COMPLETIONS MAY BE PEAKING
The latest figures show that dwelling completions in Auckland may be peaking and the expected decline in Auckland's new housing supply is probably not far off.
REMINDER
If you haven't done so yet, we would appreciate it if you could complete our car insurance survey. More about it here. The survey itself is here.
SWAP RATES LOOKING STATIC
Still all looking very 'wait and see' here ahead of the various central bank announcements this week. Wholesale swap rates are maybe slightly higher Tuesday. Our chart below records the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is up 2bps at 5.67%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is up 1bp at 4.15%. The China 10 year bond rate is down 2bs at 2.30% from this time Monday. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up 3 bps at 4.75%. The UST 10yr yield is down 2bps at 4.32%.
NZ ONE OF THE BRIGHTER EQUITY LIGHTS
After a down start to the week the NZX50 is looking brighter on Tuesday with a gain on the day so far of about 0.3%. However, across the ditch, the ASX200 is down very slightly in early afternoon trade. Tokyo, after a bright start on Monday, is down 0.7% Tuesday. Hong Kong is mirroring the Tokyo performance, with a 0.7% drop, while Singapore down too but by less than 0.1%. Shanghai is down slightly more than 0.1%. Much earlier, in the US, the S&P500 gained 0.6%.
LITTLE OIL MOVEMENT
Oil prices moved down a little on Tuesday, with WTI at US$82.60/bbl in the US while the Brent price has similarly edged down to US$86.80/bbl.
GOLD ON A BIT OF A ROLLER COASTER
In early Asian trade, gold was down around US$2 from prices earlier in the day, but up nevertheless around US$8 from this time on Monday at US$2160/oz.
NZD DRIFTS LOWER
The Kiwi dollar is still slightly drifting, having fallen a little overnight and then by about the same amount during Tuesday. It's at 60.7 USc, down from 60.9 USc this time Monday. Against the Aussie we are similarly slightly down at 92.7 AUc. Against the euro we are at 55.8 euro cents from 55.9 on Monday. This all means the TWI-5 has drifted too, from 69.3 Monday to 69.1.
BITCOIN FLOPS AGAIN
Bitcoin had just had another swoon at time of writing and had dropped around 3% to under US$66,000 in an hour at one point. Most recent price was US$65,900, which is down about 2.6% in the past 24 hours. The price has been as high as US$68,800 during that time. Volatility is the word.
Daily exchange rates
Select chart tabs
Daily swap rates
Select chart tabs
This soil moisture chart is animated here.
Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».
53 Comments
Yes, it is a beautiful language...
A commercial property fund (Oyster Group) suspended withdrawals/purchases of units. Queue 100's of Kiwi's moaning about how they had all their savings invested.
These units actually trade in the secondary market, it would be interesting to know where they are being markes if anyone knows. Unit NAV is 1.17 ish.
These units actually trade in the secondary market, it would be interesting to know where they are being markes if anyone knows. Unit NAV is 1.17 ish.
My barge pole is safely stored away from Oyster. I'm a big believer in mark-to-market if you know what I mean. Perhaps our exceptionalism is not as great as we think it is.
These units actually trade in the secondary market, it would be interesting to know where they are being markes if anyone knows.
Investors who wanted to escape the fund could do so via an external business: the Syndex trading platform that allowed units to be traded between willing buyers and willing sellers, Oyster said.
Units were at $1.30 by last March but by December had sunk to $1.17. Just over 379,000 units were sold via a trading platform by the December 31 quarter. No units were sold in any of last year’s three other quarters.
BOJ raises interest rates for the first time in 17 years, ending 8 years of negative rates. They've also canceled the Yield Curve Control policy, but will continue purchasing JGBs.
Probably not mentioned here but the Japanese govt is the largest owner of Nikkei 225 ETFs.
Chris Weston says that everyone believed this would end in tears, but things are calm as a cucumber. JPY stable, Nikkei falls mild.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/19/bank-of-japan-boj-march-2024-policy-dec…
It’s all a bit stupid. If like me you’d only drive <50km most journeys you are much better off getting a PHEV and never using the petrol engine. We are too small a market but otherwise manufacturers would be putting petrol engines on cars with 500km range just to get the much cheaper rate.
Support for coalition government sinking like a stone. All the indicators pointing down, Luxon as preferred prime minister, direction for the country, etc.
Looks like the share of political party support has not changed much which indicates partisan politics more than anything. We're entering US/UK zone where people support their party regardless of how much of a nutjob/incompetent the current party incumbents are.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/political-roundup-scoring-46-out-of-10-th…
"More vile behavior from David Seymour"
https://nopunchespulled.com/2024/03/19/below-a-typical-stuff-story-re-d…
The MSM must be dizzy with all that spin, try not to catch it
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9483-nz-national-voting-intention-fe…
- & of course they have spent every waking moment since the election putting the boot into National because of the outcome they don't agree with.
The facts look pretty dire. There's not the financial ability to provide even 2004 levels of public services and liabilities.
One side thinks they can deliver something greater than that, but couldn't even if they blew 2-3x the budget. The other thinks they can trim budgets and deliver tax cuts and still provide adequacy.
Aside from cratering birth rates, it would appear first nation governments the world over have done the maths and determined natural born citizens are a net liability to state coffers, and that imported tax payers are net tax payers, and the most lucrative way forward.
Fairly tricky to see a palatable path out, we're in a bit of a bind.
That is actually a very good point you raise here. Importing fully functioning (and hopefully low maintenance) worker bees saves the country a fortune in the health, education and welfare costs incurred compared by those born here. Probably budgeted by Treasury? Or is that far too cynical?
Indeed. There's been quite a few polls since the election, and the consensus is fairly close to the election result:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_New_Zealand_…
This is not to say the Nats won't go down in a blaze of glory, but reading anything into a particular poll or news article, especially only 6 months in, is folly.
My comment about supporting your party regardless of what nutjob incumbent was in place applies to any party regardless of where they sit on the spectrum.
In another thread I praised Luxon for calling out extremist rhetoric and calling for civility. When the coalition so something worthy of praise I'll praise it, if they do something shit I'll call it out as shit.
Labour's election transport policy was a shambles and I called it as such. This coalition has yet to do anything worthy of praise. Knee-jerk cancel culture with a willful ignorance of evidence to inform their position. I'd vote National if they stood for National's traditional values but there current anti-woke ideological evidence free bullshit stinks and as such I'll continue to call it out.
Probably fair to say the polls indicate people still prefer the coalition to be in the beehive but didn't actually vote for them for their policies, and therefore the 100 day plan saw them take a dive in the "right direction" metric. Maybe? Or people are just pissed off mortgage rates didn't come down the day after the election.
At any rate Luxon dismissing the polls feels a bit like "I don't care what my wife thinks of me, she married me already" 😄
Huh, sorry, not sorry KMD (Kathmandu) taking a hit. We are long time customers of both brands but vowed never to buy another after the Rip Curl brand dropped Bethany. We also made sure none of our Milford Funds held KMD any longer. Maybe others have too and it’s consumer blowback they need to face up to.
A lot of these corporate outfits seem to confuse their target market with the sub 1% of vocal identity virtue signallers. Its like tried and tested marketing strategies have gone out the window (identify your target customer, tailor your ad campaign to appeal to them). Shareholders need to get vocal and send this ESG rubbish to the bin where it belongs.
"The Government's position on the mega ferries was reinforced this week after Marlborough Harbourmaster Jake Oliver set limits for the maximum size of new vessels using Tory Channel to access ports at Picton and Shakespeare Bay.
The entrance to Tory Channel is narrow and tidal, making it challenging to navigate. The risk of an incident occurring increases with longer vessels.
The direction sets a maximum ship length of 187 metres. A variation to these rules will be considered on a case-by-case basis and only when safety is not compromised.
The mega ferries would have been nearly 40 metres longer and at least five metres wider than the ships in the existing Interislander fleet."
"...KiwiRail ordered the mega ferries in 2021 with no confirmation the ships could use Tory Channel..."
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/03/the_interislander_incompetence.html#…
The link has more detailed explanation & mentioned an alternative "scenic route" which I assume is Queen Charlotte Sound. That would take quite a bit longer. Also mentioned in the comments is that the KR plan required the new longer ferries to turn around at the end of QC & thrn reverse back into Picton, again taking longer.
Yet another example of eye watering incompetence in the major infrastructure projects area. The old MOW sure had its down sides in terms of productivity but the underlying principles of focussing resources on major upgrades/new infrastructure projects in a stand alone competent organisation gives me some confidence in our future. If we could at least reduce waste and rework we might be able to control costs better. Quite depressing really.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.