A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; rate cuts, Milford's woes, jobs easing, cautious but upbeat, water policy reviewed, swap rates on the move

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank and Westpac both announced cuts to fixed rates today. More of the main banks are adopting rates below 5% in the one and two year fixed terms. Bernard Hickey has a new piece on how to think about how these rate moves might affect you.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Westpac has also cut term deposit rates.

GAYNOR STEPS UP AT MILFORD
Milford Asset Management executive director Brian Gaynor has taken on responsibility for the NZ equities side of Milford's Trans Tasman Fund. Gaynor replaces portfolio manager Mark Warminger. The Financial Markets Authority yesterday announced it was fining Milford Asset Management $1.5 million following an investigation into a trading conduct breach by one of its "traders" between December 2013 and August 2014.

'HAPPIER IN NAPIER'
Job advertising data suggests demand for labour is easing. Auckland is the only main centre in which job ads are still lifting; job ads in Canterbury are falling the fastest out of all the regions. Hawke’s Bay tops the nation. This data was released by the ANZ economics team today.

MORE CAUTIOUS BUT STILL UPBEAT
The ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index eased 5 points from 123.9 to 119.9. Consumer sentiment continues to retreat, though from highs. Consumers are less upbeat about the economy over the year ahead. They are not downbeat, simply more cautious. House price expectations remain elevated, with little sign of a shift in sentiment following recently announced targeted measures.

WATER POLICY REPORTS RELEASED
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, today released two reports on water quality, calling for further steps to safeguard the quality of New Zealand’s fresh water.  Dr Wright says that ongoing conversion of land to dairy farming is resulting in increases in nutrient pollution of waterways. Both the Government and Federated Farmers welcomed the Reports.

CHINA SENTIMENT RECOVERING
The MNI China Business Sentiment Indicator, a gauge of current business sentiment, increased 7.6% on the month to 53.5 in June, building on May’s gain. Confidence now stands at the highest since the start of the year, before softer economic growth took its toll on our panel of large Chinese companies. Firms remained optimistic about the future, with elevated expectations of further easing contributing to a 7.4% rise in the Future Expectations Indicator.

WHOLESALE RATES ON THE MOVE
Swap rates fell today at the short end by about -2 bps and rose at the 10 year end by +1 bp. The 90 day bank bill rate also fell and is now at 3.23%. In fact it is now lower than the one month bank bill which is at 3.32%. Yields on NZ Government stock however are down -6 to -10 bps across the maturity range.

NZ DOLLAR UNCHANGED
The NZ dollar has flat-lined again today and is still at 69.3 USc, 89.1 AUc, 61 euro cents. The TWI is at 72.5.  Check our real-time charts here.

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