A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; dairy prices drop, job ads fall, PMI expands, NZGB bond demand strong, swap curve very flat, NZD volatile

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No rate changes today.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No rate changes today.

DAIRY PRICES DOWN -22% SINCE MARCH
The latest globaldairytrade auction saw commodity prices fall another -3.6% on average (-5.2% in NZ$). The main culprits for the decline were the milk powders. This latest drop sees the globaldairytrade index down at total of -22% over the last three auctions. Future auctions will need to be very positive if the $4.70 payout is at all possible.

FEWER JOB ADS
The number of jobs advertised declined -0.8% in March according to the latest ANZ Job Ad survey. In the main centres we are seeing job ad numbers trending lower. Wellington continues to be a drag on the national numbers and is trending even lower. Canterbury's 3-month average annual growth rate is now dipped into negative territory also. Auckland on the other hand is showing an +11% year-on-year rate of growth.

FACTORY EXPANSION CONTINUES
The manufacturing sector remains in solid territory, according to the latest BNZ - BusinessNZ PMI. Activity although slowing, was still positive across many of the sub-sectors surveyed. Concern regarding the strength of the NZ dollar, especially against the Australian dollar was a pall over the survey however.

MORE AUSSIES FIND WORK
Australia's unemployment rate has dropped to 6.1% as at the end of March and this in turn takes some of the extensive pressure off the RBA to cut interest rates at their next meeting on May 5. The largest increases in seasonally adjusted employment were in NSW and Victoria while Queensland saw the largest decrease.

BOND TENDER HEAVILY OVER-SUBSCRIBED
The latest NZ Government Stock bond tender of $200 mln worth of 2027's was over-subscribed by a factor of 4.3x. Of the 101 bids received by the Debt Management Office only 8 were successful. The average weighted yield for the successful bids was 3.34%.

WHOLESALE RATES
Wholesale swap rates firmed across the yield curve but the overall shape in the short end (1yr - 5yr) is still incredibly flat. Swap rates were up on average 3 bps. but the 1-5 curve is only 3 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate followed swap rates higher, up +1 bps to 3.63%.

NZ DOLLAR VOLATILE
The NZ dollar was quite volatile today. As of late this afternoon it is at 76.1 USc, down to 98 AUc following the good Aussie jobs data, and the TWI is at 81.  However, the euro has sunk to a new low with the New Zealand dollar now buying 71.1 euro cents. Check our real-time charts here.

You can now see an animation of this chart. Click on it, or click here.