A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Wednesday; A mortgage tweak, the somewhat less-squeezed middle, The Warehouse struggles, building consent delays targeted, swaps down, NZD still drifting, & more

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
Wairarapa Building Society has trimmed its one-year and 18-month rates both by 20 basis points to 6.95% and 6.90% respectively.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
No changes.

THE SQUEEZED MIDDLE FEELING A LITTLE LESS SQUEEZED
New Zealand households have been feeling a bit perkier, according to Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod. The Westpac McDermott Miller Consumer Confidence Index rose 4.3 points in March, taking it to a level of 93.2. That’s still below the 100 level, signalling that the number of New Zealanders who are feeling pessimistic about economic conditions still outnumbers those that are feeling optimistic. "However, some of households’ concerns about financial pressures are starting to ease, and that seen confidence picking up to its highest level in more than two years. The lift in confidence has been seen across all income groups, but is most pronounced among middle-income households," Ranchhod says.

AUCKLAND IS TOPS, SAYS ASB
Auckland's the best performing region in the country for the second quarter in a row according to ASB's latest Regional Economic Scoreboard. But it's tough out there. ASB senior economist Chris Tennent-Brown says high inflation and interest rates are impacting households and businesses and the regions topping this quarter’s Scoreboard are those that are “hanging in there” the best, rather than “shooting the lights out”.

GOVERNMENT HAS ITS EYE ON BUILDING CONSENT DELAYS
The coalition Government's requiring councils to submit data for building consent and code compliance certificates every quarter, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. "...Starting in April, Building Consent Authorities will be required to submit timeframes for building consent and code compliance certificate applications with this data being published on MBIE’s website every quarter. This added scrutiny will provide greater certainty for the sector, encourage best practice and drive innovation that will help reduce delays and let Kiwi builders get on with the job."

GOVERNMENT TO PROBE REOPENING MARSDEN POINT REFINERY
Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones says he's investigating the feasibility of reopening the Marsden Point Oil Refinery, in line with NZ First's coalition agreement with the National Party.  Jones says it's part of the Government's work on ensuring NZ has a secure fuel supply. Jones says a request for proposals is being developed with a study expected to start later this year. The refinery shut down in 2022. Rob Buchanan, CEO of Channel Infrastructure - formerly known as Refining NZ - recently said the refinery was now fully decommissioned. Recommencing refining operations would cost billions of dollars and take a number of years, he said.

DOING IT TOUGH IN THE WAREHOUSE
The Warehouse has had a rough first half of its financial year, with a $55.5 million hit on the sale of its troubled Torpedo 7 subsidiary leading it to an after tax loss of $23.7 million. The company says its online platform TheMarket.com will be either closed or sold by the end of the financial year. In terms of ongoing trading across the group, CEO Nick Grayston sees challenge ahead. "Our second half is now underway, and we’ve seen much tougher trade in February with sales decline in the low teens. In March, we’ve seen some improvement with our sales decline returning to be more in line with the level of decline experienced in our first half. Given the unpredictability we’re seeing and that we expect the retail environment to remain challenging with subdued customer spending, we will not be providing an outlook for year end but we will share a Q3 Trading Update in May 2024."

'SCAMMERS ARE GETTING SMARTER'
New Zealand's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT NZ ) says it had 7,935 incidents reported to it during 2023, a 3% decrease from 2022. Individuals, small businesses and large organisations from all over New Zealand submitted incident reports. Some 24% of incidents reported to CERT NZ included some form of financial loss, with a combined total loss of $18.3 million. Scams and fraud accounted for almost $15.7 million (86% of overall direct financial loss) in 2023. Of that loss the biggest contributor was investment scams. While the overall numbers were down slightly in the past year CERT NZ says "we see scams are evolving and scammers are getting smarter".

SOME 'MODEST' DOWNSIDE RISK TO MILK PRICE FORECASTS SEEN
Following the "broad-based decline" - of 2.8% - in dairy prices at the latest GlobalDairyTrade auction early on Wednesday, Westpac's chief economist Kelly Eckhold notes that the key Whole Milk Power (WMP) prices are down 8.6% from the early February peak, suggesting "some modest downside risk" to Westpac's $7.90 per kilogram of milk solids farmgate milke price for the current season "but is more relevant for next season’s $8.40 estimate should these weaker trends persist".

DEPARTING RBNZ ASSISTANT GOVERNOR JUMPS ON BOARD ASB
Reserve Bank Assistant Governor Juliet Tainui-Hernandez, who recently announced her resignation to focus on a career in governance, has been announced as a new director for ASB from May. She will be joined as a new director on the ASB board by Nigel Williams who works for ASB's parent Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Tainui-Hernandez who has had responsibility for Transformation, Innovation, People and Culture at the RBNZ is also a director of Ngāi Tahu Holdings Corporation Limited.

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 LOWER
Wholesale swap rates are likely slightly lower Wednesday. Our chart below records the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 5.64%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down 1bp at 4.09%. The China 10 year bond rate is up 1bp at 2.30%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down 1 bp at 4.67%. The UST 10yr yield is down 1bp at 4.29%.

MIXED FORTUNES FOR EQUITIES
The NZX50 is heading down again, with a drop of so far about 0.2%, but in Australia the ASX200 is up about 0.2% in early afternoon trade. Tokyo is on holiday after a 0.7% rise on Tuesday. The Hong Kong market opened down 0.6%, while Singapore was up 0.1%. Shanghai was down 0.1%. In the US, the S&P500 rose 0.6%.

OIL PRICES EDGE LOWER
Oil prices edged lower again Wednesday, with WTI at US$83.16/bbl in the US while the Brent price is also slightly lower at US$87.24/bbl.

GOLD GOES UP DOWN AND SIDEWAYS AGAIN
In early Asian trade, gold was like earlier in the week having its ups and downs but at time of writing wasn't much changed up around US$2 from prices earlier in the day at just under US$2160/oz.

NZD STILL DRIFTING
The Kiwi dollar is down just very slightly against the US currency from earlier in the day at 60.5 USc. Against the Aussie we are down at a little under 92.6 AUc from a little under 92.7 AUc earlier in the day. Against the euro we just a touch lower at 55.7 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 has its downward drift, from 69.1 Tuesday to just above 69.0.

BITCOIN'S WILD RIDE
It's been an up and down 24 hours for Bitcoin - but mostly down. Most recent price was US$62,750, which is a fall of about 5.0% in the past 24 hours.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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