Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today (or if you work from home, before you shutdown your laptop).
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank and TSB were among the banks that cut fixed home loan rates today. Here is a full review. There were also rate cuts from Nelson Building Society (NBS), Wairarapa Building Society, and the Police Credit Union. All rates are here.
TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank and TSB were also among the banks that cut term deposit rates today. Cut were also announced by the Bank of China, NBS, and the Police CU. Here is a full review.. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.
JOB SHRINKAGE
Filled job numbers grew for second consecutive month in December. This rise may indicate that the rate of unemployment is close to peaking. But year-on-year there is still job shrinkage. If you are aged 35-39 years, the latest employment indicator data shows you are in the sweet spot for job demand. This is the only age range where the number of filled jobs rose (+2.7%) in December from the same month a year ago. It is hardest for those 29 and younger. For workers 15-19, jobs were down -9.2%, for 20-24 they were down -2.5% and for those 25-29 they were down -4.4% from a year ago. Women are doing better than men, and the biggest rises are in the healthcare sector. Essentially it seems that the only employment growth sector is for experienced nurses.
24 YEAR LOW & WEAK DEMAND PERSISTS
There were only 1978 new tractors sold in 2024. You have to do back to 2000 to find a lower annual sales level. There were only 155 sold in December, and that was far below the ten year average for a December of 223 (-30%).
SOLID IMPROVEMENT
Vendors paid an estimated $1.77 bln to realtors in residential real estate sales commissions last year, a solid improvement over the 2023 year.
ANZ SEEKS NEW LONG-TERM FUNDING
ANZ NZ said it is looking to raise five year funding in the local bond market. It didn't say how much it is targeting it usually comes with an option for "unlimited oversubscriptions". The offer will be for bonds that are "unsecured unsubordinated fixed rate bonds". They will be "the same class as existing quoted debt securities." Like their other issues, this one will no doubt be priced at a margin over swap. The current swap rate is about 3.70%. In the similar year-ago ANZ bond issue, the margin was +67 bps. If that applies this time (unknown) then they will be raising this five-year funding at about 4.40%. (ANZ offers TD savers 4.30% at present.)
BRAZIL WENT HARD EARLY, OPENING OPPORTUNITY FOR US
We perhaps should have noted this yesterday, but the following comment by Prime Range Meats caught our eye. "Demand for ovine products from the UK and EU remains strong and is expected to persist. On the beef front, Brazil exhausted its 2025 US beef quota in just 17 days. Any additional Brazilian beef entering the US will now face a 26.4% tariff, providing New Zealand beef with a competitive edge in the US market over Brazil for the rest of the year."
NZX50
Here are the key changes to know about in the New Zealand equity market. As at 3pm, the NZX50 is down -0.3%. Gainers led by EBOS, a2Milk and Auckland Airport. But Infratil, Meridian, and SkyTV were the big decliners
STILL NOT NET-POSITIVE
In Australia, the December NAB business sentiment survey remained negative, but a little less so. The same survey shows businesses thing conditions are positive, and a little more so.
SWAP RATES SOFTER
Wholesale swap rates could be a little softer today so keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was down -2 bps on Monday at 3.98%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is unchanged of course while they were on holiday at 4.47%. The China 10 year bond rate has held at 1.63%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -7 bps at 4.59% while today's RBNZ fix was 4.55% and down -8 bps. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.55% and down -3 bps from where we were this time yesterday. Their 2yr is also down -3 bps to just on 4.21%, so that positive curve is now down at +33 bps.
EQUITIES MIXED ON TECH EXPOSURES
The NZX50 is dowen -0.4% from this time yesterday. The ASX200 is up +0.1% from their Friday close, after their long holiday weekend. Tokyo is down -0.7% in early Tuesday trade. Hong Kong is up +0.4%. Shanghai is down -0.1% at their open. But Singapore is up +0.9%. Wall Street ended its Monday session down -1.5% on the S&P500. The Nasdaq ended -3.1%.
OIL HOLDS LOWER
The oil price is little-changed from this time yesterday at under US$73.50/bbl in the US, and just over US$77/bbl for the international Brent price.
CARBON PRICE DIPS AGAIN
The carbon price is still within its tight range, but dipped again today to NZ$63.25/NZU. The next release of units at the official auction is on March 19, 2025. See our new daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.
GOLD SLIPS
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$21 from yesterday, now at US$2742/oz.
NZD SOFTISH
The Kiwi dollar has slipped a minor -10 bps from this time yesterday, now at 56.7 USc. Against the Aussie we are unchanged at 90.4 AUc. But against the euro we are down -10 bps at 54.2 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just over 67.2 and down -10 bps from yesterday.
BITCOIN MARGINALLY FIRMER
The bitcoin price has moved up +0.4% to US$101,782 from this time yesterday. In between it fell below US$100,000. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been moderate at just under +/- 2.5%.
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34 Comments
Obviously Brazil had itself a somewhat sizeable stock pile of beef and reacted in haste to the potential of a tariff being imposed regardless of whether or not it was within its quota. The USA needs to import lean manufacturing beef to blend with its domestic production servicing the massive burger trade. NZ has been a consistent supplier of this for over sixty years. It is a cost effective and profitable commodity to produce particularly as a virtual cull from the dairy industry. It would be neither popular nor prudent for any American president to impose tariffs that would result in an increase in prices for the staple American burger, the Big Mac etc. On the other hand though, NZ needs the volume of this market just as much and if it should attract a tariff it may be that the American importers have enough muscle to force that cost back onto the NZ producers by way of a compensatory reduction from the invoice, the CIF price. An interesting set of circumstances to balance for sure but if the Brazilian’s fear was that the tariff was going to be sheeted home to them, that may offer a clue as to where things are likely heading which would be a win for Trump’s scheme. That is the USA collects the tariff but without any resultant increase in prices to the American consumer.
Australia has a FTA with the USA and is considered a "friend" unlike NZ. I would hazard a guess that Australia would get first dibs on increasing beef supply (and everything else) to the USA, which they would happily jump at since China trade relations is still a problem. Beef, wine, dairy, seafood - all the same products that NZ produces.
Decreased close to 400 as at 30 September 2024 from the year before. Gareth Kiernan said "there were fewer agents and more sales meant that the average number of sales per agent rose from 3.86 in the year to September last year to 4.44 this year. Commission per agent rose by 14.6%, from $107,800 to $120,300. That is an average and some salespeople will have made significantly more and many significantly less. He said commission per agent was about 7% below the average since 2013 and 39 percent below the peak of 202 and 2021".
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/531024/how-much-are-real-estate-salespeople-really-earning
I don’t know Speed…we drove from Akl to Welly over the break…I reckon the RE agents can keep their commission & instead you can take the absolute piss take that is our roadworks & build a few schools…not having a pot shot at the actual lads in hiviz, can’t blame them for just doing what their told, but wowee what a sh*t show…& I’d imagine a pretty expensive one at that 🤷🏻♂️😂
Phew its a good thing I sold all my bitcoin all those years ago for a fraction of the current price and invested into sensible safe companies like Nvidia.
Well I don't know about you Wolfster, but I am somewhat surprised at how quickly ratty has bounced since y'day. My instincts tell me that it's possible that the carnage is just warming up. But not just BTC, the bounce back among the dino cryptos has been strong. What is getting rekt is all the degen-squared tokens with AI narratives. It's all relative I guess.
My personal lower price targets for BTC are first at USD70K, then 50K. Ideally we would go back to <USD15K, but that might be just hopium on my part.
My personal lower price targets for BTC are first at USD70K, then 50K. Ideally we would go back to <USD15K, but that might be just hopium on my part.
If you were a capitalist savant
Wouldn't you be able to do better than hoping you could get into something at 5 cents on the dollar on the dip.
Apparently some censorship issues with Deepseek
Watch: We test DeepSeek for censorship. It doesn’t go well
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360562380/watch-we-test-deepseek-censor…
When you use DeepSeek app, all your engagement, IP, prompts, etc goes to China.
When you use DeepSeek through say the Venice app (http://Venice.ai), none of it is going anywhere. When using DeepSeek, it's for Pro users only. And get this. You can pay in crypto. And no email required.
Run DS locally - that's the point.
A highly intelligent person may not want to get involved in politics either.
If you know its limitations and they don’t really affect you, then the price is attractive. I’d be much more worried about the Chinese having my data TBH. For many business applications neither problem would matter.
Aussie has some of the best Game of Mates scandals. Federal Government contracts to ex-PwC CEO Luke Sayers' business have exploded 2.5x - $8 million+ - since PwC were supposedly cut off. Sayers was PwC CEO for the entire tax leaks affair.
Sayers has been ousted from board of the Carlton AFL club after 'personal' images were found on social media. His wife has filed for divorce but the family sold for for around $16.5m. Luke and ex-wife Cate and Luke come from modest backgrounds but have become extremely wealthy on the back of Aussie taxpayers.
Seems like zero accountability in the Aussie Game of Mates. Get invited to the party and make out like a bandit.
https://theklaxon.com.au/luke-sayers-in-taxpayer-bonanza-after-pwc-ban/
Everyone on the game mate.... I was standing at Sydney airport waiting for bags, two baggage handlers, saying how shit there wages are $150k aud plus 15k super free, saying all these pricks in suits are on 250k min... welcome to Australia. Even the deck hands on the ferries make 150k
Here you can earn $120k by being an average real estate agent. Much easier than being a deck hand.
REAs still need to get that sign on the dotted line before they eat. Glengarry Glenn Ross should be seen on film or in the theater by everyone. In the immortal words of Blake:
This watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 in sales commissions last year. How much you make? You see, pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. You're a nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father? **** you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here? Close! You think I'm too hard on you? You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you ********?
Even the deck hands on the ferries make 150k
Stop / Go gigs at AUD150K. What could possibly go wrong? Mind you, this is why you can't serve a pint for <$15 and cups of coffee need to go to $8-12 for a cafe to be commercially viable.
To be honest, the Aussie public sector has become one overpaid grift - desk jockeys with limited skill sets, talent, and expertise.
BBG is reporting that Trump wants universal tariffs on all imports into US,with higher targeted pricing on products that Trump wants onshored,The new Treasury sec suggested 2.5% for the universal tariff,which Trump suggested is too low.G10 currencies respond with depreciation.
Clearly in NZ we need to look at funding our current account deficit internally,by reducing offshoring asset sales to overseas entities.
Could go as high as 20%. Tariffs are inflationary. Inflation means bonds sell-off. Does the treasury secretary want the bond market to sell-off?
https://www.ft.com/content/7fb420b9-1bd1-4c68-8575-94e99315051c
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