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
NBS has raised some fixed rates today. Kiwibank has still yet to move up in this cycle. All current mortgage rates are here. And note, you can compare mortgage offers with our unique calculator that takes into account other costs and cashback incentives, here.
TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
BNZ increased some term deposit rates today. And so did Rabobank, Heartland, and AMP. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.
TO SELL YOU NEED TO MEET THE [CURRENT] MARKET
Realestate.co.nz says vendors need to price their properties to meet the current market rather than hold out for 2021 prices. That is because the housing market's mid-winter stock levels are now at a 12-year high.
ARRESTED AT BORDER ON RETURN
A defendant who is alleged by the Serious Fraud Office to have been involved in an investment fraud scheme was arrested after returning to New Zealand. Serene Peters faces one charge of obtaining by deception related to a $1.8 mln investment fraud. She has been overseas since September 2023 and was arrested at the border on her return to Auckland. She is one of five defendants that have been charged by the SFO in relation to this case. Two of Mrs Peters’ sons, Christopher Peters and Francis Peters, and associate Gur Raj Bhachu have previously pleaded guilty to their part in the wider scheme, which involved fraudulently obtaining credit and properties. Mrs Peters’ son Gerard Peters has also been charged.
NZX50 DOWN
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index was down -0.8% today, but up +1.1% for the past 5 trading sessions. It is up +3.0% from six months ago. From a year ago it is now up +7.5%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is down -1.4% so far today. Synlait Milk, Tourism Holdings, Napier Port, Mercury and Scales lead the gainers. Oceania, Auckland Airport, Spark and SkyTV led the decliners.
STILL TOUGH FOR KEY HORT MARKETER
T&G Global released its half year profit result, claiming sales momentum (+3%). But at the same time it still reported a loss of just less than -$1 mln for the period, even if it is down by -73%.
HEARTLAND MAINTAINS DATE FOR TSB SHAREHOLDER VOTE, FOR NOW
Heartland Group Holdings says there's currently no change to the timeline for its proposed acquisition of TSB, with the Heartland special shareholder meeting still scheduled for September 30, where its shareholders will vote on the proposed transaction. This comes with an interlocutory application filed by the Taranaki Community Accountability Society Incorporated against the trustees of TSB's shareholder the Toi Foundation in the High Court. The Interlocutory Application challenges Toi Foundation’s community consultation and decision making process, and seeks to restrain the trustees of the Toi Foundation from voting on the proposed transaction on an interim basis until the resolution of the court proceedings, Heartland says. Meanwhile, the "Toi Foundation is confident that its community submissions process is being conducted in a fair and appropriate way, including taking steps that exceed the requirements of Toi Foundation’s Trust Deed, and that it is acting, and has acted, in a prudent, responsible and lawful manner."
MONETISING SOE DEBT
The Crown is selling the debt contracts it holds in Chorus so it can fund more infrastructure, and claim this delivers net proceeds of about $700 mln.
SAFETY A HARD SELL
Beef exports, especially to the US, are coming up against price competition from Brazilian and Argentine beef, even if those alternates are heavy in antibiotics. US buyers are using the price difference against our exporters. The price premium our product gets is being narrowed in a market that seems to care less about the presence of widespread antibiotic use. This may cap farm-gate pricing here.
CHINA'S EXPORTS RISE MORE THAN EXPECTED
China’s exports surged almost 24% to US$398 bln in July in a better than expected result. The gains were driven by strong demand for AI-related technology products and a rush by manufacturers to ship goods to the US ahead of potential new tariffs. Outbound shipments to the US rose +17%, the EU by +16%, and and to ASEAN nations by +38%.
SWAP RATES HOLD FIRM
Wholesale swap rates may be marginally firmer again today. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was down -1 bp at 2.93% on Thursday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is up +6 bps from yesterday at 4.99%. The China 10 year bond rate is holding just over at 1.70%. The Japanese 10 year bond is still at 2.78% today. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.73% and up +2 bps from yesterday. (The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with the Thursday rate up +2 bps at 4.68%.) The UST 10yr yield is up +7 bps, now at 4.68%.
EQUITIES MIXED
The local equity market is now down -0.6%. Meanwhile, the ASX200 is down just -0.1%. Tokyo has opened down -1.0%. Hong Kong is little-changed but Shanghai is up +0.5% at its open today. Singapore is up +0.7% at its open. South Korea is has resumed its retreat, although not a hard one today, so far at least. Wall Street ended its Thursday trade with the S&P500 down another -0.2% and the Nasdaq was down marginally.
OIL PRICES RISE
American oil prices have risen +US$2.50 from yesterday with the WTI benchmark is now just on US$78/bbl, while the international Brent price is just over US$83.50/bbl and up +US$4.
CARBON PRICE STABLE
There have been a few good trades again today and the price has held at $55/NZU. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.
GOLD DIPS
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$15/oz from this time yesterday, now at US$4260/oz. Silver is now just over US$62/oz and little-changed.
NZD LOWER
The Kiwi dollar is down -30 bps against the USD from yesterday, now at just over 58.6 USc. Against the Aussie we are little-changed at 83.5 AUc. Against the euro we are down -10 bps at 50.9 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just over 62.3 and down -20 bps.
BITCOIN DIPS
The bitcoin price is now at US$64,276 and down -0.3% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been low at just on +/- 0.6%.
Daily exchange rates
Select chart tabs
Daily swap rates
Select chart tabs
This soil moisture chart is animated here.
Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».
29 Comments
Opinion | Christopher Joye
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/there-s-a-fatal-flaw-in-elon…
There’s a fatal flaw in Elon Musk’s abundance utopia
In the tycoon’s telling, humanity is on the cusp of “sustainable abundance”. Work is optional. Poverty is abolished. It is a beguiling vision, but also naive.
Got to love how Joye can cut through the crap
Musk predicts we will be “desperately fighting deflation”. Governments respond by simply issuing cash to citizens – not universal basic income but “universal high income” – and money itself eventually becomes irrelevant. Work is optional. Poverty is abolished.
As PDK would say - everyone cannot have everything in a finite world. A universal basic income sounds like
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
It highlights the hypocrisy of leaders who use lofty ideals of equality to gain power, only to create a privileged ruling class for themselves, perhaps being provided a higher basic income.
I never figured Musk for a Magic Money Tree acolyte - except for himself
Its funny the guys who shorted the IPO have made more money then the investors, that's inconvenient, as soon as the lockup period ends you will see a huge number of insiders selling out before they board the rockets to Mars, you cannot blame them they have made huge returns and possibly want to diversify their portfolio for ... diversity.
In the book "The intelligent investor", Graham cynically refers to IPO as "It's Probably Overpriced" or "Imaginary Profits Only" or "Insider's Profit Opportunity" if I remember well.
My Food Bag IPO got the Trifecta!
Long Term Capital Management did Nobely; perhaps outclassing anyone else.
Wasn't really an IPO - more an invitation-only. Really interesting to see who smelled the rat at the front end.
Edit - MFB was trying to do social good. Not to be ridiculed as a goal.
He's clearly on the spectrum, and I suspect he can't read a room.
But he will be intensely aware of the finite nature of the planet, and our trajectory on it. Hence the dream of living as a brain forever, with robotic AI body.
Didn't factor in energy, or entropy, in that dream. Which was exactly the comment near the end of Don't Look Up, re their cryogenic attrition-rate.
Quite a good discussion about NZ Superannuation. Don't let them gaslight you!
I looked at the pen-name and knew it had to be a crock.
Rosenberg buys the whole economics shebang. Always has.
And he seems to omit the Baby-Boom bubble, along with omitting anything to do with the Limits to Growth, or our trajectory thereon.
The young reporter doesn't know what he doesn't know, either.
Not that he's alone in that.
We can't all be blessed with your propensity to make category errors.
on other matters
Up the WAHS!
Professor Barry Eichengreen - famous for defending dollar reserves primacy as ‘the cleanest dirty shirt in the hamper’ - has flipped.
He now concedes the dollar’s utility as a financial reserve is diminished by the illiquidity of the Treasuries market.
The bottom line is that Washington, fearing the consequences for US financial markets, is reluctant to see foreign central banks use their dollar reserves. This is telling us that the dollar is not the attractive reserve currency it once was. When this message sinks in, other countries will redouble their search for more attractive, readily usable alternatives. Reserve diversification is apt to gather steam.
https://www.ft.com/content/86dbf0c1-d127-4255-85af-602afc30228e?syn-25a…
buy gold
The US Treasury is printing dollars and buying US Treasury bonds from the Japanese. So the Japanese are in effect dumping US Treasuries but the US is managing the dump by printing dollars and absorbing the bonds.
It’s actually quite clever, but desperate at the same time.
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2026/08/03/why-the-us-spent-billions-…
buy gold
I bought Silver earlier today (I'm already Gold heavy), happy with the decision so far.
Desperate yes, absolutely, Phoenix, but that is precisely where they are, amidst a serious risk of their entire bond market imploding.
Clever - well I'm not so sure - the ECB was completely blindsided by the sell off of Euros to prop up the Japanese yen - their officials are reportedly furious.The ECB President was only notified after the sale had already taken place.
They view the decision to dump Euros, instead of US dollars, as an unprecedented breach of the G7's longstanding conventions on central bank cooperation.
This sudden influx of Euros forced the euro-to-yen rate down by 4% in a matter of days. The US was, in effect, dumping market volatility on the ECB's doorstep to try to mask its own problems.
If the US had used its own dollars to buy yen, it would have signaled broad dollar weakness, and exacerbated stubborn domestic inflation which is already grossly understated in their official data.
On the other hand, if Japan had liquidated USTs for cash, US bond prices would spike dangerously. As such, by redirecting the pressure, and selling Eurobonds instead, they insulated their own bond market from a potential meltdown.
Clearly, the US prioritised Japan because they are their single biggest holder of US debt, whilst at the same time, treating Europe as an afterthought. As such the US has severely damaged its relationship with Frankfurt.
This is hardly surprising though, as blathering Bessent, has about as much diplomatic finesse as Trump.
Plus Bessent has form in the currency markets. He spent decades as an elite hedge fund macro-trader - most notably, as the right hand man of billionaire financier George Soros.
(i) Black Wednesday 1992 - Bessent had convinced Soros to aggressively short the British pound, when they had artificially pegged the pound to the German mark, but couldn't afford to raise interest rates to defend it without devastating UK homeowners..
Soros's relentless short-selling forced the UK government to collapse, withdraw from the European exchange rate mechanism, and devalue the pound. Meanwhile, Soros made over $1 billion in a single week, leaving the British taxpayers to absorb a multi-million-pound loss.
(ii) Crushing the Japanese Yen - (The Abernomics Trade 2013)
Last time Bessent was playing with the Yen, 13 years ago, he made a poultice by actively trying to destroy it.
As the CIO for Soros, Bessent anticipated that the Japanese PM Abe would print massive amounts of money to devalue their currency to spur inflation. He positioned huge short bets against the yen, and as it tanked. the move netted Soros another $1 billion+ in profit.
Well, I have learned something incredible, MMP was introduced BY MISTAKE by David Lange misreading his cue cards. Maybe you guys knew ?
MMP was introduced because we voted for it, and have done so now three times! Don't fall for Seymour's misinformation
Nothing to do with Seymour, just watch TV1 news today. Lange himself admitted to his mistake and regret.
In reality there were two "mistakes", Yvil.
Needless to say, neither of the major parties wanted MMP, as the old system naturally concentrated power in their own hands.
Yes, it is on record that Lange made a huge gaffe that trapped Labour into holding a referendum that they desperately wanted to avoid.
#1 Was when Lange misread his notes and pledged that Labour would hold a binding referendum if re-elected. When they won they tried to quietly bury the issue in a select committee.
#2 The huge irony is, that seeing an opportunity to exploit Labour's broken promise, Bolger matched the pledge during the 1990 campaign, promising that National would hold the referendum if elected. When National promptly won, they were cornered into honouring their commitment.
Because both leaders boxed themselves in, voters were ultimately given the say, and in 1992 85% of voted for MMP.
Tough times for pipfruit exports. Why am I not surprised?
30+ exporters of barely differentiated (between exporters) apples. Repeat of the near total collapse of kiwifruit in the early 90s (leading to legislated single desk exporter Zespri) on the horizon?
Oh that's right, we used to have a single desk pipfruit exporter but vested interests engineered its demise.
Yes I can remember the producers of small downgrade apples that couldn't get good market prices pushing and pushing to break up the Apple and Pear Board. The government in power at the time folded, no doubt blinded by their own insightless and foresightless stupidity and right wing free market ideology... 'the market knows best'... so destroyed NZ's world leading apple breeding program and initiated a relentless slide in NZ apple exports.
It's worth relating here my experience as a child. Mum would take the train journey to Upper Hutt and buy a box of lower cost apples from a friendly green grocer (times were hard). Every apple was small, irregular in shape and had defects in shape and appearance. A very few years later she ordered a carton of apples.. every one graded large, round, defectless, individually wrapped in a paper tissue and the carton price well below the damaged ungraded apples of the years before. What made the difference? Single desk seller, economies of scale in production, quality controls, logistics and marketing.
Can it be done again? IMO likely yes but not likely with the National and Labour Parties getting the largest shares of votes in the General Elections. I'm confident that the free market is capable of organizing successful fruit production and marketing (eg. Zespri with Kiwifruit) if the future political will to change the status quo combined with industry agreement and cooperation was forthcoming. Too late for apples now but it is possible in the future with feijoas though presently hobby farmer scale and organization.
No fun allowed any more. Then they wonder why everyone has mental health issues
The largest mortgage lender in the U.S. is United Wholesale Mortgage. Its stock price plummeted 35% in last night's trading session after reporting a massive Q2 2026 net loss of USD451.9 million. The common dividend is suspended.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/06/united-wholesale-mortgage-plunges-40per…
Fannie mae and freddy mac make them look small though
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.