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
Nelson Building Society (NBS) cut its fixed rates today. All rates are here.
TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
BNZ cut its RapidSave account by -55 bps to 3.20%. General Finance and the Nelson Building Society (NBS) cut TD rates. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.
A QUICK IMPROVEMENT
Housing affordability continues improving for first home buyers. In fact, that turnaround has happened quite quickly. Lower house prices and lower interest rates have complimented the modest increase in take-home pay to create a virtuous shift.
MORE JOBS, BUT TOO SOON TO SAY ITS A TREND
Filled jobs rose for a third straight month in January, adding about +8000 in the month. But they are still lower than year-ago levels. An up-trend is not really evident yet however, so perhaps it is best to say this market is stabilising.
NO CHANGE, NOT ESPECIALY POSITIVE
The ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence survey was basically unchanged in February from January, and basically holding on to the level it rose to in September. The proportion of households thinking it’s a good time to buy a major household item, the best retail indicator, is also little-changed but also still quite negative. Inflation expectations were little changed too, but high at 4.0%, continuing their stable run. So no easing of these expectations.
PICKING UP THE PACE I
The total amount owed for housing mortgages hit $370 bln in January, up +4.0% from a year ago, and the fastest pace of expansion in two years. For banks the growth was +4.3%, for non-banks their share fell -15%.
PICKING UP THE PACE II
Even though household bank balances fell in January from December in the normal post holiday shift (down -$710 mln), the amounts diverted to term deposits actually rose +$473 mln. Actually, this is a normal holiday shift although this year the rise was only half of January 2024 shift, and a quarter of the January 2023 shift.
PICKING UP THE PACE III, FOR SOME
Lending to business rose +3.3% in January from a year ago, a 21 month high. But rural lending actually fell -0.6%.
PAYING FOR THE COSTS OF GROWTH FROM THE GROWTH
The Property Council today claimed that housing affordability is "an increasingly pressing issue" which justifies less pressure on developers to pay for the infrastructure required for housing developments. Supporting that, the Government announced work to ease the burden, pushing cost recoveries on to the future owners of the developed land, providing for targeted rates, and broadening existing tools to support value capture and cost recovery. They also acknowledged the roll-out of the Milldale model hasn't worked and the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act will need a substantial overhaul. More here.
NZX UPDATE
The NZX50 is unchanged today at 3pm from yesterday's close, but that still leaves it down -1.8% for the week. From a year ago it is up +6.5%. Vista Group, Summerset, Port of Tauranga, and Contact lead lead today's gainers with Kathmandu, Meridian, NZX, and F&P Healthcare all topping the decliners.
PROFILE UPDATES
Users of our NZX50 company profiles should know that we have updated Channel Infrastructure (CHI, #35), NZX (NZX, #39), and Summerset (SUM, #16) with their latest annual results.
A SMART MOVE
Ratings agency S&P says Port of Tauranga's acquisition of an effective 50% stake in Northport should bolster its competitive position. With this control they say they will be in a better position to withstand the coming tariff uncertainties to trade.
CHANGES IMMINENT
Today, February 28, 2025 is the last day you can comment without being a supporter. And that is also the last day you can get our daily or weekly email newsletters without being a supporter.
'SEE, I TOLD YOU'
Ahead of an industry conference, the Insurance Council release the results of a survey they commissioned that supports its stance on climate change resilience. One in two New Zealanders believe the Government should invest more to protect people and properties from extreme weather events, according to a new survey. They did not release the survey details however.
THE LIABILITY NET WIDENS
The courts have agreed now that a CFO can be personally liable for public company continuous disclosure requirement breaches, not just CEOs and directors. The FMA has won its case against the CFO of CBL.
FASTER THAN THEIR RIVALS
Fonterra said that its January milk collections were up +4.6% from the same month last year, up +3.6% over the last full year. They also reported that the full industry collections here were up +2.9% in January, up +2.0% for the full year. It is an impressive market share gain for a company that used to be regarded as slow & lazy.
SCAM TSUNAMI
Australian company regulator ASIC says they are shutting down about 130 investment scam websites per week (yes, almost 20 per day), as this type of fraud explodes. The claim they have now shut down more than 10,000 of them so far.
SWAP RATES LOWER
Wholesale swap rates could be a bit lower today on negative global trends, but keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged at 3.76% on Thursday. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down -5 bps at 4.35%. The China 10 year bond rate is up +3 bps at 1.80%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -5 bps at 4.61% while today's RBNZ fix was at 4.58% and down -1 bp. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.22% and down another -6 bps from yesterday. Their 2yr is down -7 bps at 4.02%, so that positive curve is little-changed at +20 bps.
EQUITIES DROP HARD, NZX50 LOOKS GOOD BY COMPARISON AGAIN
The NZX50 is unchanged in late Friday trade. However the ASX200 is down -0.7% in afternoon trade. Tokyo is down a chunky -2.8% in early Friday trade. Hong Kong is down -1.4%, and Shanghai is down -0.6% its open. Singapore has also opened down -0.3%. Wall Street was down a sharpish -1.6% on the S&P500 in Thursday trade.
OIL FIRMS IN THE US, NOT ELSEWHERE
The oil price is up +US$1, now just on US$70/bbl in the US, and over US$73/bbl for the international Brent price.
CARBON PRICE STILL IN RANGE
The carbon price is still within its range, and today is up a marginal +10c at NZ$63.10/NZU. The next release of units at the official auction is on March 19, 2025. But that auction's floor price is $68/NZU, so it is heading for a failure. 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$36 from this time yesterday, now at US$2876/oz.
NZD MUCH SOFTER
The Kiwi dollar has fallen -90 bps from yesterday at this time, now at 56.1 USc as the USD surges. Against the Aussie we are down -10 bps at 90.2 AUc. Against the euro we are down -30 bps at 54 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is just over 66.2 and down -50 bps from yesterday.
BITCOIN RETREATS FURTHER
The bitcoin price is down -4.5% from this time yesterday, now at US$81,901. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been high at just on +/- 3.3%.
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Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».
99 Comments
@david - down a chinky?
EQUITIES DROP HARD, NZX50 LOOKS GOOD BY COMPARISON AGAIN
The NZX50 is unchanged in late Friday trade. However the ASX200 is down -0.7% in afternoon trade. Tokyo is down a chinky -2.8% in early Friday trade. Hong Kong is down -1.4%, and Shanghai is down -0.6% its open. Singapore has also opened down -0.3%. Wall Street was down a sharpish -1.6% on the S&P500 in Thursday trade.
@david....Biting my bottom lip..nervously.
- what do you do when the price breaks through baby
- what do you do when the price breaks through babe
- what do you do when the price breaks through
- OUR STOPS ARE IN, THERES NOTHING TO DO
- Honey trader BABE
Stocks tumble, S&P 500 erases 2025 gains
The S&P 500 and Russell 2000 tumbled 1.6% while the Nasdaq 100 dove 2.8% on Thursday. The benchmark US stock index is now negative in 2025.
Stocks faced intense selling pressure after President Trump committed to putting 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% on China beginning March 4. However, a basket of tariff-exposed stocks managed to outperform the Magnificent 7 by about 1%, suggesting the losses were more deeply centered around the inability of Nvidia’sNVDA $121.15 (-8.57%) results to rejuvenate the AI trade or momentum stocks.
Tech was the worst-performing S&P 500 sector ETF, down 3.6% in its worst day since the DeepSeek-induced sell-off. Financials led the way higher, with energy and real estate also gaining.
The formerly $3 trillion chip designer reported revenues and earnings that exceeded expectations, but traders dumped the stock en masse anyway. Tesla’sTSLA $282.29 (-3.04%) abysmal run continued, with the stock now down at least 1.5% in six straight sessions for the first time since the depths of the Covid panic in March 2020. Amazon’sAMZN $208.63 (-2.58%) new quantum chip was overshadowed by all the profit-taking in the megacaps, as were reports of MetaMETA $660.69 (-2.23%) teaming up with Apollo to finance data centers.
"OUR STOPS ARE IN, THERES NOTHING TO DO:"
use an option as a stop loss..... understand liquidity
those cheap puts I have been talking about are now showing a very nice profit
now we have electronic liquidity. yeah right
" I stayed till 7:30pm, i never got my cash..." that was 1987.....
now we have electronic liquidity. yeah right
I acknowledge the sarcasm.
Freudian slip?
He has plausible deniability, as the u key and i key are next to each other
interesting spell checker settings though (I would try and present this as inadmissible evidence)
The jury shall strike this conversation from its mind.
Tokyo is down a chinky -2.8% in early Friday trade.
You see what's going on with JPY and understand the relationship?
David, ever the patriotic kiwi
I thought maybe it was some adjective that has become somewhat obsolete due to pejoration over the years, starting off as an innocent definition but building a more negative undertone over time.
Nope, turns out it has a long history as a racial slur.
My grandmother was a lovely women, such a gentle soul, but she lived through the war.
And after that much propaganda had nothing positive to say... I have heard this word before
My father arrived at Guadalcanal not long after the US forces secured the island. He was actually attached as a liaison officer to General Murray’s intelligence section. Before that he had flownCatalinas. In the 1980s I was afforded a Mitsubishi Sigma company car. He refused point blank to sit in it. He said he had been bombed by a Betty and chased into fortunate cloud cover by a Zero, all from that bloody outfit. But underneath it all, what really counted, some of the atrocities were more than just distant talk.
I have spoken with a few veterans of WW2. They generally regarded the Germans as honourable but never had a nice thing to say about the Japanese and many would never own a Japanese car. They'd have a German car though. An elderly neighbour of mine said his father was a PoW of the Germans. I asked him how it went. He said it was pretty awful. He refused to be separated from the enlisted men and go to a luxury oflag. The Germans said, "oh, okay" so he went to a stalag. I thought that was very accommodating.
Interest.co, I think BNZ Rapid Save is now 3.2%.
Roll up, roll up, for last comments!
The end of democracy lol
So Democracy as you know it includes not paying your dues?
Going to miss reading some of the comments.
Hopefully we don't get left with the Bitcoin bores
Not going to miss much. Hope Kate and the others with something to say stich around.
Kate is given space for whole articles, so I expect she will stick around.
You seem as energised as Yvil at the prospect
Comment quality is going to plummet. So one of the strengths of the website, gone overnight
Will certainly miss the quality comments about the property market crashing and rates being HFL...
🤣
Wait and see.Those that avail the website for, more than just the comments posted, will freely be able to observe the impact, positive or negative, from the sidelines. Venture to suggest though, that some are too embedded to remain on the sidelines.
@HouseMouse I'm kind of in the mood for change. Just trying to generate a carnival-like atmosphere. I guess for others it is a wake. Bad Zachary!
"Comment quality is going to plummet"
What would that be HM ?
Gotta laugh at that HM - Go back five years when we had people who thought before tapping the keys.
Yes, it's been fun dumping my sometimes inane and provocative thoughts on here over the past few years.
Will still be lurking though, so if someone gives me a shout out I'll be sure to wave back through my computer screen.
If you think you've got something worthwhile to say, try supporting DC and the others that provide you with the opportunity to spout what (to me anyhow) is pretty unremarkable and unresearched blather - but meantime goodbye and God bless.
But I don't think I've got something worthwhile to say, no egos to fulfil here. Unresearched is probably a stretch though, I try to use statistics to form the basis of my comment. Maybe what I say about Boomers/Pensioners is a bit polarizing, but I think it's well within a sort of "tit for tat" intergenerational bashing. Difference being my bash can be backed up by stats, not 100% reckons.
I may have been mistaken in thinking the fairly obtrusive ads all over the page were enough to generate some revenue. The "God bless" part gave me a chuckle though, thanks.
Unresearched is definitely a stretch, you've been one of the best commenters for backing up your comments with links/stats, thanks for your worthwhile contribution.
Goodbye, and thanks for all the fush.
does the market bottom at 42% off peak?
close to 38.2% a Fibonacci retracement, hard to do this with property as there is no real prices discovery and its not a standard price valuation, we are already at 50% off sq m in many suburbs
Ooooh fibonacci IYKYK
1 March and still able to comment. 1337 h4x0rz.
Scams! Sister got caught.Bogus outfit looking good on Facebook lured her into a purchase. Cleaned out her credit card $5000. Had warned her to use a debit card when purchasing anything on line and with just enough balance to cover the purchase being made. Didn’t listen. Now up to her bank but the “merchant” is neither registered nor “locatable.”Electronic technology is wizard but the dark side of it has not failed to keep up.
You have to be careful with debit cards too because my bank allows me to go into overdraft on it. I had to ask them to turn off that feature as it was enabled by default on the new card I got.
Good advice. The only reason I have a hardly used debit card is because I thought it was limited to the current balance.
Years ago I got a separate Visa with a requested low limit for online use.
My Visa Debt card is in its own account separate from my EFTPOS/Savings etc. Sure, it gets used for day to day purchases but I only transfer money in as and when required, at most there'll be $50 on it.
The ANZ app gives me a notification when the balance is below $10 to avoid those pesky "unarranged overdraft fees".
I would make sure you ask for that overdraft on the debit card to be turned off as they have it enabled by default, at least mine was. Not sure how far it lets you go into overdraft on it.
Good point, I've never got that checked out. I recall my card did decline once and it was less than $100 overdrawn so figured that was the rough limit. Not life changing, but Yvil will compare it to an annual interest.co subscription ;).
""Tokyo is down a chinky -2.8% in early Friday trade."
Reminds me of Paul Holmes at the Cheeky Darky incident!
Crafty little Fox that one. Was on a flight to LAX he was in business class because first class was full. Impassioned plea, don’t you know who I am and more. And it worked. A family volunteered their teenage son back to business so they could sit with the celebrity. There it is
The Milldale link doesn't work - 404 error
Aussie Ponzi is showing cracks. Woolies profit down 5% (excludes some temporary items) in an environment of 2%+ population growth and 3-4% inflation.
These are dreadful numbers and shows an underlying weak economy. Without their insane immigration, Aussie would likely be in a massive recession.
Woolworths has reported an almost 21 per cent drop in underlying profit as cost-of-living pressures force the supermarket giant to offer steep discounts to attract budget-conscious shoppers.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-26/woolworths-posts-20-per-cent-dro…
It is interesting to compare NZ to Oz at the moment. Their housing market never crashed and their interest rates are higher than NZs. I don’t know if they can even drop their OCR due to inflation figures.
The interest rate cut was more RBA giving government a little stimulus heading into the next election. Actually the RBAs preferred measure of inflation ("trimmed mean") has picked up and as their energy subsidy abates inflation will likely kick up.
"One in two New Zealanders believe the Government should invest more to protect people and properties from extreme weather events, according to a new survey. "
So, one in two disagree...
Haha, that's not the way the media works.
Would like to see how they framed the questions. Also it would be nice if they asked how much they would like to each pay as most just want the goverment to pay.
I think you mean they'd like the govt to reach into someone else's pocket to pay for it.
That's what insurance is for.
"The Herald reports:
Cutting the corporate tax rate could boost the economy by billions of dollars a year, according to modelling done by consultancy Deloitte."
"If the tax rate was slashed to 20% – the average across the Asia Pacific – New Zealand’s GDP would be $67b greater over the next 10 years, with an additional 27,765 jobs expected to be created."
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2025/02/a_simple_way_to_boost_the_economy.ht…
(KB link because Herald is paywalled)
Consultancy paid billions by firms to reduce how much tax they have to pay recommend reducing tax rates.
& your own proposal to increase GDP $67B + 27k jobs is...?
10,000 scams shut down
They should do more than just shut down scams. You get the feeling it isn't taken seriously enough. They prey on old and vulnerable people who are losing their senses. Susceptibility to getting scammed is an early sign of dementia. The authorities need to do more than just shutting them down. They need to be pursued until the ends of the earth.
very difficult as a child to control your parents money
They also acknowledged the roll-out of the Milldale model hasn't worked and the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act will need a substantial overhaul.
Failure is acceptable as long as we reform and make progress. It's sitting on our hands that I think voters will grow sick of.
there are people willing to fund infra, but council try to steal the money.............................
$50 million of taxpayer money on a ski field (including $15M from National)
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/02/19/marginal-due-to-risks-govt-expressed-…
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2025/02/50_million_of_taxpayer_money_on_a_sk…
I like skiing and trout fishing so as far as i am concerned ...bring it on
Another shocker from Aussie. Star Casino on verge of collapse.
Star Entertainment’s board says it is unsure whether it can trade beyond Friday, claiming it will receive at least one proposal by the end of the day that would allow the company to stave off collapse.
https://www.afr.com/companies/games-and-wagering/star-entertainment-on-…
Emotionally challenged tourists who dont understand Bitcoin have driven the index down into the FEAR ZONE.
There is much rejoicing from the Bitcoin crowd. A great opportuity to buy low. Those coins they bought at 100K can now be bought for 80K which means they now have more coins bought at an average bargain price of 90K. It's almost criminal how easy this is.
Why buy at 80K when you can buy at 70K
Indeed, many are saying that 70K is the price point to begin buying.
$78,666 right now.... Ominous?
Pending house sales in US hit all-time low. Media reckons weather might have something to do with it.
https://apnews.com/article/home-sale-nar-mortgage-627425ea38f88c9e766d3…
Pending home sales in the United States slid to an all-time low in January as high mortgage rates, record-high home prices, and possibly the terrible weather last month hindered those seeking to buy.
yep shitty weather is stopping those rent seeking investors snapping up bargains.
I guess it's sayonara, au revoir, adios, farewell and goodbye.
May the economic gods grant all your desires, the political gods be smite, and glory be the mighty black swans. Mwaahhh
I am sorry to see you go
you can buy just a month every here and there...
if your TAB account is up?
Guess this is my last comment and same as always when I first joined Interest.co.nz
The market runs in cycles, the game stays the same. Adapt and work with the system, not against it.
Over and out after 14years, will miss this site. :)
For a hundred bucks you can't stay? Wow! 10 big macs are too much of a sacrifice?
Interest.co.nz, it would be good to be transparent about the financials of your decision to price wall commenting after a few months. I visit this site at least 20x a day including my page clicks, seeing at least 7 financial based ads per click. That's 140 ad impressions per day, on high value financial advertising.
That'll drop off very quick, I spend most of my scrolling and time on here because of comments, including coming back to see replies and new comments. With a huge chunk of that gone, well I'll be visiting less and am estimating it'll entirely drop off.
Edit: if they re-enable free commenting, I will 100% be back. It's not the end, I just think it's a bad move long term.
Yep same here - most of the time I get a break between jobs I jump on here during the day. Click straight to comments half the time, as that is where all the interesting stuff comes out. Now I will probably just go back to the NZ sharetrader forum
Also I don't need to hear the drabble from the over 50s that are cashed up from decades of better economic times and property increases about it being affordable.
That's not the reason why I am not going to pay. It's 2025. We have endless free content access, everywhere. The model of pay to comment while already being bombarded by ads is the wrong move. It may increase revenue short term but this is putting a dying model onto an industry that has shifted.
Interest.co.nz could easily do a daily morning 15 minute podcast covering the news that is done in the article. People would definitely listen on their way to work rather than have to sit down and read. Finance audience podcasts make very easy money with almost no overheads. Sponsorship demand in NZ is huge for this. Simple idea, 30 minutes of daily work, would pay far more for time than the current article only output.
pay to comment while already being bombarded by ads
When you subscribe, you get the content ad free. That's exactly why I've subscribed for years.
"It's just $100, or $0.00019 per minute bro" as spoken by those over 50's who have some very unhealthy fixation with maintaining an ego on this website.
Agreed …. after 14 years & 7 months it’s time to bid farewell to all the wonderful folks at interest.co.nz … to all the informative , funny & friendly people here , and to David Chaston of course , a fond adieu … best wishes chaps & chapesses. … have a Gummibar , yum. …
Very shrewd comment by 21Trillion. I really hope interest.co.nz continues to thrive nonetheless.
I haven't been a particularly prolific commenter, and my views are often not popular, but nevertheless I've enjoyed this chatty little corner of cyberspace with its diverse range of characters and opinions, and will miss many who will no longer be contributing.
All the best to everyone!
I hope they continue on and thrive too! Hopefully the comments open back up one day.
Comments still working on the 1st March
This whole paywall thing feels like a corporate redundancy round, where you see the good people being fired...
but at least a few idiots got fired
In case I choose to stay outside the pay wall, thank you to all those who made positive contributions and had constructive open minded discussions.
Remember:
1. there are those commenters who are acting with their undisclosed vested self interests (financial, political, etc) and undisclosed conflicts of interest.
2. past performance is no indicator of future performance
CAVEAT EMPTOR
Also a reminder of some perspective:
1) https://youtube.com/shorts/8yQb1_o7Iyc
2) https://i.etsystatic.com/20789136/r/il/7c826d/2524401297/il_fullxfull.2…
Think I will probably tap out here for now, don't really think the paywall is the best move personally but if I am being honest with myself I should probably be spending less time here so maybe it is for the best haha.
See you guys in a month when I break down and buy a membership again.
May be around on occasion if this place hasn't become ghost town.
See you all later.
✈️ ✅
imho its going to be a disaster
Best wishes, IT Guy
Comments I will miss, in no particular order.
HFL, specuvestors, ponzi-town, 'ol ratty, spruikers, DGMs, CONF, 10% by Christmas, NZ Gecko, shitboxes, swap rates likely to be little changed, bagholders, DCB, bull-trap, auction clearance only 42%, the Comb, Granny Herald, vested interests.
Goodnight y'all
,
,
A couple of good points.
Probably better than average for me.
And bitcoin drops
Just like the millennium, doomsday did not happen and we can still comment.
How many people subscribed just to be able to comment? Fools.
Well, we do live in a high trust society and people can always unsubscribe. The site may be having technology issues or rules may not kick in until Monday.
Green tick is still there so no changes yet.
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