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A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; winter housing slump, non-performing loans surge, Census investigation, swaps on hold, NZD firm, & more

Economy / news
A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; winter housing slump, non-performing loans surge, Census investigation, swaps on hold, NZD firm, & 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
None here today, so far. See non-rate offers here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
ICBC has raised TD rates for terms 1 to 5 months.

WINTER SLUMP
Housing market heading into its usual winter slump with high stock levels giving buyers the upper hand. Asking prices, new listings are all sinking as stock levels stay high. And of course this demographic trend isn't housing market friendly either for the long term trajectory.

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE NEXT DAIRY AUCTION
There is another dairy auction tomorrow. The futures pricing suggests SMP will be unchanged from both the last full auction and last week's Pulse event. Futures pricing suggests WMP will be come in a sharpish -5% lower from the last full auction and -6% lower than last week's Pulse event. But then again, the futures market has proven to be a somewhat unreliable predictor of GDT event pricing recently.

TEAMING UP
Private markets platform Syndex is acknowledging that recent market conditions have highlighted challenges of raising capital for private companies. They have now entered a partnership with Australia's platform for private market capital, FinClear/FCX.

APRIL SURGE
Non-performing housing loans total surged 7.7% in a month. The latest RBNZ figures show non-performing housing loans increased by +$136 million in April to over $1.9 billion and are up +72% in the past 12 months.

CENSUS DATA MISUE CLAIMS INVESTIGATED
Stats NZ has asked an independent external party to investigate allegations of misuse of census data collected for the 2023 Census. Last year Stats NZ partnered with Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency to lift low response rates from Māori in Auckland. The collection operations with non-responding and partial-responding Māori households were led by Te Pae Herenga o Tāmaki. As part of this, Whānau Ora worked with Manurewa Marae. Late last week Stats NZ received allegations relating to the inappropriate use of census data collected at Manurewa Marae.

UPDATING DIRECTORS' LEGAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
The Minister of Justice has asked the Law Commission to undertake a review of directors’ duties and liabilities. It will be led by Commissioner Geof Shirtcliffe.

OUT WITH THE OLD. IN WITH THE ???
P&O Cruises in this part of the world, famous for its rust-bucket vessels at the end of their commercial life, is to be closed at least as a brand. Its Florida-headquartered owner Carnival is to relaunch it under their own brand next season.

SWAP RATES HOLD
Wholesale swap rates are likely to be little-changed today. Our chart below will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp at 5.62%, a level it has hovered around for more than 80+ days. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down -3 bps from yesterday at 4.36%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 2.32%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -6 bps at 4.82% from this morning and the earlier RBNZ fix was at 4.72% and down -10 bps from where we left it on Friday. The UST 10yr yield is up a mere +1 bp from yesterday at 4.41%. Their 2yr is now at 4.82%, so the curve has shifted to be more at -41 bps inverted.

EQUITIES HOVER MOSTLY LITTLE-CHANGED
The NZX50 is unchanged in late Tuesday trade. The story is the same in afternoon trade for the ASX200. Tokyo has opened its Tuesday trade down -0.5^ while Hong Kong is up +0.4%. Shanghai is up +0.2% while Singapore is down -0.3%. Earlier, Wall Street closed with the S&P5000 up a very minor +0.1%.

OIL SLIPS FURTHER
The oil price is -50 USc lower from this time morning, now just on US$73.50/bbl in the US, and down a bit more at just on US$77.50/bbl for the international Brent price.

GOLD HOLDS
In early Asian trade, gold has held from this time yesterday, at US$2348/oz.

NZD LITTLE-CHANGED
The Kiwi dollar is up +10 bps from this morning's open, now at 61.9 USc. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 92.6 AUc. Against the euro we are unchanged at 56.7 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is still at about 70.9.

BITCOIN ON HOLD
The bitcoin price has eased slightly today, now at US$69,091 and down -0.3% from this morning's open. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been modest, at +/- 1.5%.

Daily exchange rates

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Source: RBNZ
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End of day UTC
Source: CoinDesk

Daily swap rates

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Opening daily rate
Source: NZFMA
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This soil moisture chart is animated here.

Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».

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28 Comments

I hear China red meat cold stores are somewhat full, hence not so active buyers, now it looks same same possibly re WMP.   The downturn in China has miles to run.....   I would expect NZD to weaken soon.

I have been watching a few you tubes on the demographic issues about to hit China, in fact most of the western world.   Would sem to suggest the cost of credit will remain higher then normal until around 2035.

 

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Guess you're referring to pork. The following article is about Rusagro, a massive Russian pork producer. 

https://www.pigprogress.net/the-industrymarkets/market-trends-analysis-…

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Was beef prices actually.   Must have a lot on ice

 

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Beef is not as often consumed as pork - price. When times are tough and wallets are closed, fewer trading up opportunities to beef. Also, buffalo is a substitute for beef. Sourced from India. 

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Was quite excited to see buffalo steaks on the menu at our overnight lodge after eating boiled potatoes and eggs for 2 weeks whilst trekking the Everest Base Camp trail in 1988. Very disappointing. Tough is an understatement. Straight back to the spuds and eggs.

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Tiwai smelter deal fishhooks still tbc

"Tiwai certainty welcome, but concerns about $2 billion subsidy"

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/518629/tiwai-certainty-welcome-but-…

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Great news for Invercargill, a nice little town if you are into Rugby, racing and a few cold ones....

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Wait, Union or League?

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And wind

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And the colour grey

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Over the ditch, the revelation that Bill Shorten's 'specalist speechwriter' gets paid $300K pa when there is a team of 200 comms specialists is causing some public reaction. The numbers work out to approx $25K per speech since Shorten's speaking engagements since 2022.

Stewart is making almost double some of the highest-paid speechwriters within the agency, which confirmed those among its senior ranks would take home around $140,000 a year.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Services Australia said “speechwriting is a specialist skillset” with “accomplished and high calibre writers” difficult to find.

“An external recruitment exercise was undertaken in July 2022 but there were no applicants found suitable commensurate with the level,” the spokesperson said.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/03/bill-sho…

  

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Hard to find good ones these days…

https://youtu.be/aWCObgnmpPg?feature=shared

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Just a thought - triggered by 'demographics' ... [evil grin] ... With all these people leaving the country, how much money are they taking with them? And the people coming in, how much do they bring with them? Surely there is a net outflow? And the new people, will they be able to buy a dwelling for the same amount as those that left? 

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I would say you are correct there Chris, of the people I know who have shifted over they have sold up and relocated. And not only that but some have taken their pension with them as well.

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how much do they bring with them

Also how much of their paycheck is being sent home? There was an interest article about this earlier in the year, I don't have time to find it now.

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Remittance business is large

 

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Good news if you have cancer, bad news if you have some other disease that misses out: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/budget-2024-finance-minister-nic…

Interesting that MP's know more about the best drugs to fund than Pharmac...

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I would say their focus group polling post budget is telling them not funding the cancer drugs was a major mistake. 

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It's literally the game plan. Roll back legislation to support the Tobacco companies, people get cancer and die earlier. Obviously not part of the election promise but there you go. Many on here have told me that the repeal of tobacco legislation benefits are because people die earlier and then we save on super payments. 

I don't understand why anyone would find it surprising that the coalition would renege on this election promise. 

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The smokers will clog up a lot of public healthcare capacity before dying. Nobody dies smoking a last one peacefully in their armchair.

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Not surprised at their logic, but are surprised at their political tactics. Seems they are banking everything on an economic recovery before the next election

 That, and blaming everything on the minor coalition partners.

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They're going after Roaring Kitty for making out like a bandit and taking on the hedgies. Only authorized individuals and institutions allowed to play so it seems.

E*Trade is considering telling meme-stock leader Keith Gill he can no longer use its platform after growing concerned about potential stock manipulation around his recent purchases of GameStop GME 21.00%increase; green up pointing triangle options, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has also been reviewing trading in GameStop call options around the time of Gill’s social-media posts, according to people familiar with the agency’s efforts. The options trades sparked internal discussions at the SEC over whether they could be considered manipulation, one of these people said. It couldn’t be determined whether the SEC was reviewing Gill specifically.

https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulation/e-trade-considers-kicking-meme-s…

 

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Mr Gill has not manipulated the market, in fact he has been very open about his transactions (after they occurred).  The SHFs don't like retail beating them at their own game.

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the police minister let it slip months ago that there would not be 500 extra police but was told to walk back his statements and say that they will be trying when he knows dam well the police cannot even train enough replacements for those leaving and retiring.

 

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Just back from China. Overall had a great time and plenty of my own assumptions were destroyed.

I don’t want to pretend things are perfect there and rubbish here. Each country has its pros and cons. But boy could we learn a few things from China. 

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And you needed to go their to find that out ? Mind you it would be good for a load of Kiwi's to go there, they only listen to the Western media and are brainwashed.

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Some criticisms of China are certainly warranted. But yes, I would say the western media generally lacks balance in its coverage of China. 
And there’s nothing better than visiting a place to give one a more balanced perspective.

How would you suggest one should find out ‘the truth’ about China? I wouldn’t say the Chinese media is particularly reliable or balanced either.

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