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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
First Credit Union cut its one-year "special" mortgage rate to 6.75% from 6.99%, and its two-year rate to 6.35% from 6.50%. See all mortgage rates here.
TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
The Wairarapa Building Society cut its six-month rate 10 basis points to 5.70%, its one-year by 15 basis points to 5.50%, and its two-year rate by 20 basis points to 4.80%. All savings rates are here.
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE RISES
The ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence survey rose four points in August. Although that's on top of a five-point increase in July, at 92.2 it's still well below its 10-year average of 109. Both the current and future conditions indexes rose, inflation expectations inched 0.1 percentage point higher to 3.8%, and expected house price inflation lifted to 2.8% from 2.4%.
SECTOR CREDIT A MIXED BAG
The latest monthly Reserve Bank sector credit data shows housing lending increased $623 million in July from June to $362.1 billion. The annual growth rate was 3.2%, unchanged from June. Consumer lending fell $11 million to $14.464 billion, with the annual growth rate down to 0.8% from 1.8%. Business lending also dropped, down $782 million to $134.736 billion. The annual growth rate was surprisingly 2.4% versus 2.2%. Agriculture lending rose $206 million to $63.688 billion, with annual growth at 0.4% versus 0.5%.
MIXED PICTURE FOR BUILDING CONSENTS
The latest building consents figures from Statistics NZ show consents were issued for 3352 new dwellings in July, up 53.9% from 2178 issued in June, and up 9.6% compared to the 3058 issued in July last year. However, on an annual basis they fell 22% in the July year to 33,921.
FLETCHER BUILDING SEES A$155M PROVISION FOR WA PIPE ISSUES
Fletcher Building says its subsidiary Iplex Pipelines Australia, alongside the Western Australian Government and industry stakeholders, has reached an in-principle agreement addressing plumbing failures occurring in some WA homes constructed with Typlex Pro-Fit pipe. Assuming this joint industry response is finalised, Fletcher Building expects to record a pre-tax provision of A$155 million in its full-year 2025 financial statements.
BIG ANNUAL LOSS FOR TVNZ
TVNZ posted a $85 million June-year net loss after tax following a $62.1 million non-cash impairment due to asset revaluations. The loss compares to a $1.7 million profit the previous year. Revenue fell $38.8 million to $288.859 million, while expenses were cut $9.9 million to $303.617 million. CEO Jodi O’Donnell says TVNZ is "cautiously planning for a stabilising of the economy and expect challenging market conditions to continue until the end of the calendar year." TVNZ continues "to be disciplined on our cost outlook and are working with our people to find solutions to a $30 million challenge in full-year 2025."
REPORT ON ACCESS TO BANK ACCOUNTS PROMISED
The Council of Financial Regulators (CoFR), consisting of the Reserve Bank, Financial Markets Authority, Commerce Commission, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and The Treasury, plans to publish an issues paper on access to basic bank accounts by the end of the year. It'll analyse domestic trends, international best practice approaches to basic banking, and identify options for CoFR agencies "to support an industry-led solution to this issue."
NZX EQUITY MARKET UPDATE
Check out our quick update story on how the NZX is faring today, as at 3pm. We welcome comments on that update story.
NZ DOLLAR BIT WEAKER AGAINST GREENBACK & AUSSIE
The Kiwi dollar is a little weaker against the greenback and Aussie dollar, compared to this time Thursday, and slightly stronger against the euro. At the time of writing it's at US62.67 cents versus US62.86c, at AU92.12c versus AU92.51c, and at €56.59c versus €56.45c.
SWAP RATES
Our chart below will record the final positions today for wholesale swap rates.
CARBON PRICE SOFTER
The carbon price is at $60.50/NZU, down from $61/NZU this time on Thursday. See our new daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.
BITCOIN UP SLIGHTLY
The bitcoin price is down a bit from where it was this time on Thursday at the time of writing, at US$59,049.
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Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».
69 Comments
TVNZ’s days must surely be numbered. Would anybody, on the public side of things actually miss it. Last time I tuned in I was aghast by not only the overwhelming number of adverts but the appalling quality of them and everything else. Seems to me ever since the advent of the super personalities such as Holmes the whole damn shooting box has been about the players at the expense of the audience and the content just got flashier and wretched.
same as RNZ, its because people stopped care about the new spready their own weird agenda, they just want useful un biased news.
RNZ comes across as being run by a Grey Lynn cartel. Same old names; same tired agendas. At least Kim Hill moved on. Will keep my opinions to myself re these celebrities.
Revenue down $40m and expenses down $10m, I think they call that negative jaws.
I don't want to kick them when they're down, bit I will. Everything feels amateur, the 6pm News is like stepping back in a timewarp to the 80's, I half expect "thank you for your kind donation, thank you very much" to start playing and put the empty glass milk bottles out for delivery. The last time I watched it the first two news items on some trivial local political matter took up 8 minutes of time. The quality home content is thin on the ground these days. Pincered by rising costs and global streaming app's. If it was churning out high quality local content it's worth preserving, but it isn't.
I remember when the mother of the nation news reader, forgotten her name, wanted a salary of $850k a year. This around 10 years or so ago. Think it was the CEO who wasn't aware of that and left shortly aftewards. Someone may have a better memory on this. Perhaps that culture has come back and the show after the news with jeremy whats his name and the woman co-host are also being overpaid.
I remember when the mother of the nation news reader, forgotten her name, wanted a salary of $850k a year.
I thought John Hawkesby was ridiculously overpaid. Similarly, Leighton Smith and Paul Holmes.
However, I am going to say that I am probably wrong. Their remuneration was based on their reach and ratings, which can be quantified for the sale of TVC advertising.
So effectively they lived through the golden years.
The dripping wet lefties he chats with weekly from UK/US/Oz make him look like he is paid by Labour or WEF. There was so much he could have buried Ardern/Hopkins/Bloomfield with but he never pulled the trigger. He is a garden variety establishment hack.
Noam Chomsky explains media manipulation to BBC host Andrew Marr.
The Hosk is not a reporter or journalist. He is definitely good for his employer. He's the equivalent of a social influencer for the oldies who don't get their hits from tik tok, YouTube or Insta.
He is definitely toxic, because he has to be, it's how he gets listeners. Your average Joe doesn't want to be entertained by reasoned, impartial discussion. He'll happily ignore facts, data, evidence to get people riled up about stuff and he's really good at it. Taps into key themes, common-sense bloke on the street reckons are superior to experts even if they are contradictory or proven to be wrong, govt=bad, rich people=good, poor people broken down into many categories=bad, council people = stupid, the usual populist themes.
I mean that's fine as we live in a free speech country but let's make sure we treat it for what he is, an entertainer, he's a talk show host, nobody should go to him to get news or to expect any sort of integrity.
A reshuffle in TVNZ following the departure of Paul Holmes in 2004 saw her become the sole news presenter for the 6pm ONE News bulletin, and her salary soared to NZ$800,000.
I was worth that $800,000, says Judy Bailey
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/i-was-worth-that-800000-says-j…
Content for the open minded is thin on the ground these days, everything is partisan.
Apparently, 89% of media coverage of Trump is negative and 84% of KH coverage positive. It tell's you everything you need to know. KH is the media darling, no policies no worries. They'll be no hard questions, no scrutiny of her performance as VP over the last 4 years. Can you imagine if she had been shot in the ear under Republican watch?
Trumps latest scheme: get in quick!
Don’t forget the local “salt of the earth/good sorts” feature. Yknow, old Les whose been mowing the lawns at the community tennis club in Eketehuna for 50 years and is now being honoured with a plaque.
And any potential mention of, or visit to, NZ by any b grade celebrity
Agree - whole thing set to an 80s beat with odd news stories like squashing tomatoes story last night a highlight. :-(
It’s an insult to the intelligence - the smart minds left years ago. I’ve had a look at it over the last month and pretty horrified.
It looks unrecoverable to me.
The Dollar Tree earnings announcement is telling. If a US citizen owns assets, they're doing well. But if they don’t own assets, they're already in a Great Depression.
But how much longer can the US economy be propped up by asset prices?
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/29/dollar-general-shares-crater-20percent-…
Japanese discounter Daiso making a move into India for retail but also for production. Pretty crazy that the local prices in India will be slightly higher than in Japan. Daiso prices in ASEAN are higher than in Japan. And the US too I suspect.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Consumer/Japan-s-Daiso-aims-for-200-st…
‘Market concentration has now reached 2000 Dot-com bubble levels.
Technology, telecom, and healthcare sectors' share in global stocks reached a record 45% in July 2024.
Over the last 4 years, this share has jumped by ~10 percentage points, exceeding the previous all-time high of 44% seen during the 2000 Dot-Com bubble.
At the same time, financial, energy, and materials as a % of global equities fell to 25%, below the 2000 levels.
After the Dot-Com bubble burst 24 years ago, tech, telecom, and healthcare stocks lost their global share for years as financials, energy, and materials gained.
Will history repeat itself this time?’
https://x.com/kobeissiletter/status/1828814448917979398?s=46&t=MUwQeKa7…
US house price to median income has hit the highest level ever (I assume the source is correct.. it appears to be).
https://x.com/gameoftrades_/status/1829235067702653136?s=46&t=MUwQeKa7M…
What a train wreck the past 20 years of economic policies have been.
Actually looks like it jumped substantially under Trump in 2020 (Covid response) then roughly flat from there.
I find it interesting how the US had 40 years of falling debt relative to GDP from 1945-1980’s and in which time the US appeared to go from strength to strength…and since then it appears to have been all downhill with America looking weaker and weaker while public debt has ballooned out from 40% to 120%.
Be interesting to get JFoes take but the deficit spending there seems to be a real problem they are going to have to get on top of..I mean if they have a significant recession now, which it looks like they are about to get, then is this debt level going to skyrocket to 150% + (as GDP falls while they attempt another round of debt stimulus?) - where does this unsustainable path end?
Would probably line up with the dates that China came online. From memory it was the "Made in Taiwan" that was first up with the cheap shit and then it moved to China. What can I say, look how far Taiwan has come, its now the worlds top semiconductor manufacturer. Look where China is now, just smashing the automotive market. The Americans got greedy, they outsourced everything to China and now its biting them in the arse.
A lot of that is military budgets. You see dropping manpower & boots on the ground for more tech does not make things less expensive. Less expensive in human lives yes. But the number of defense contractors creaming it in the US is extreme by any means. The US could stand to lose half of those defense contractors, military projects with no effective difference on the strength or capabilities of the US. That is pretty big waste in the system. However it is far easier to get military funding in the US then funding for the essential duties & health of the populace in most times. Even during the pandemic, they had to have mass unmarked graves & self made essential medical equipment in hospitals, but fraudulent admin & defense budget increases could skip by unnoticed. However given that healthcare includes that for defense personnel, likewise that significant cost increases have occurred to aged care and education as well, (including more demand for tech integration and custom designed programs that get tossed every couple of years) it is no wonder the debt has grown according to the population make up and the dynamic the US has with the contractors and consultants who are funded for projects.
I find it interesting how the US had 40 years of falling debt relative to GDP from 1945-1980’s and in which time the US appeared to go from strength to strength
It's almost like there was a world event that happened that allowed the US to bankroll a massive industrial expansion that they managed to profit from for decades.
Third world stuff:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/three-more-auckland-housing-developments-…
What is worse is that people can smell it, so it isn't even being done well. Using environmentally septic tanks which recycle it for use on farms etc is normal in rural areas and doesn't smell. It is crazy however that this sort of thing is happening as new developments should have that infrastructure in place, or they shouldn't be created.
“Tankering wastewater by road is just the old-fashioned night cart going door to door ", Waitakere councillor Ken Turner.
Add to that the massive waste in transport energy, emissions. All because Auckland council and CCOs could not do basic infrastructure that humans have been capable of for thousands of years. This leads to even more risk of another old fashioned practice; sewage leaks & dumping into the waterways, rivers & streams, contamination & fumes that increase the rates of illness for the people living in the area.
But hey at least Auckland council is focused on a massive multi-million dollar park (where one already exists) that has no one living near it and a lot of the public with be denied access to it in their lifetimes (by them literally stripping even more access away from the existing park). That sure sounds more important that elite council office workers can have yet another white elephant & statement piece to their name instead of supporting real needs & essential infrastructure. Already they have spent over a million on the project before a single physical step has taken place add to that staff costs in managing the consulting project which also push it well into the millions.
And lets be clear, the people living in many of these homes are not the FHB owners & investors who have turned to renting the properties out to tenants who have very little choice between homelessness & affordable homes they can live in.
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