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 is the latest to respond to ANZ’s home loan rate cuts. The Cooperative Bank did too, cutting all its fixed rates. And Westpac then pushed through their cuts, but just to three shorter fixed rates. More here. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank cut all its TD rates from 30 days to 2 years – but not its 4.10% 6 month ‘special’. Cooperative Bank did too. And so did Westpac. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

COOLER WITH NO SIGN OF HEATING UP
House prices continued to cool in July – particularly in Auckland. REINZ says buyers are in no rush to make a purchase as prices dip slightly and unsold listings available edge up.

SOME SELLERS ARE TAKING LOSSES
Cotality says more than one-in-10 residential properties sold in the June quarter sold for less than their purchase price. Worsde, more than one-in-six residential property sales in Auckland in Q2 was loss-making.

SCENE SETTING FOR A RATE CUT
Households still think inflation’s higher than it is – but future expectations have settled. The latest quarterly Household Expectations Survey for the Reserve Bank finds that households reckon the inflation rate will be 4.0% in a year and 3.0% in two years – probably encouraging news for the RBNZ ahead of the latest OCR review

23% UNDERLYING INSURANCE MARGIN, BEST IN 6+ YEARS
Dominant general insurer IAG saw its New Zealand ;profits rise strongly in the year to June. They said that was because of lower claims costs & reduced natural disaster costs. But it was also because their premium income rose at the same time, up by +5.3% for their direct AMI, State and NZI business, boosting margins. The whole IAG Group gross written premium rose ‘only’ +4.3%. IAG NZ’s annual insurance profit climbed to AU$605 mln on these margin rises. (For reference, Tower saw its premium income rise +9.8% in its half year to March compared to the same period a year earlier. But Tower has less than 20% of the business IAG NZ retail has.))

SUNCORP TOO
Suncorp New Zealand boosted general insurance profits by nearly 90%. Their NZ annual net profit after tax for general insurance hit $398 mln due to lower reinsurance costs, ‘benign’ weather and ‘earn-through impact of previous year’s pricing changes’. Their premium revenue rose +9.3% in New Zealand, turbocharging the net result.

NZX50 FIRMER AGAIN TODAY
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up +0.6% so far today. It is down -0.4% over the past five days and down -1.7% year-to-date. But it is sitting +2.1% higher year-on-year. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is down -0.1% so far today. Gentrack, Turners, Kathmandu, and SkyTV rose; Spark, Hallensteins, Vista Group, and Tourism Holdings fell.

HOT DEMAND CONTINUES
There were 116 bids in the two NZGB bond tenders today for $450 mln. This bidders fronted up with almost $1.8 bln, so demand was its usual heavy. Both maturities resulted in lower yields from the prior equivalent events three weeks ago.

THE LONG LIST OF SYSTEMIC FAILURES BY BIG FINANCIALS JUST GOT ADDED TO
In Australia, one of their largest superannuation funds failed to tell regulator ASIC about investigations into serious member services issues, including incorrect insurance premium refunds for dead members. This is part of what ASIC is alleging in an Australian Federal Court suit launched today.

SANGUINE
And staying in Australia, their jobless rate eased to 4.2% in July, down from the four year high of 4.3% in June. The decline was driven by a drop of 10,200 in the number of unemployed, bringing the total to 649,600. Meanwhile, employment rose by +24,500 to a record high of 14.6 mln following a downwardly revised gain of +1,000 in June. Full-time employment rose by +60,500 while part-time positions fell by -35,900. Female participation hit a record high of 63.5%.

SPAM/SCAM WARNING
We have reports that scammers are using our journalists names in crude email scamming attempts. Yes, they use our personal names, but the email domain name is not interest.co.nz. Don’t respond to any emails purporting to be from us if it doesn’t end in @interest.co.nz. Our journalists never ask you to buy anything (we area free service).

SWAP RATES SOFT
Wholesale swap rates are will probably be lower today across all durations on global bond market risk aversion. 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 3.15% on Wednesday. The Australian 10 year bond yield is down -3 bps at 4.21%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 1.73%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -1 bp at 4.41% and also down -1 bp at 4.38% in the earlier RBNZ fix today. The UST 10yr yield is down -1 bp from yesterday at 4.23%.

EQUITIES MOSTLY POSITIVE AGAIN, BUT TOKYO CORRECTS
The local equity market is now up +0.5% in late Thursday trade. The ASX200 is up +0.7% in afternoon trade. Tokyo has opened with a correction after the record run, down -1.3% and off its all-time high. Hong Kong is up +0.2% at its open and Shanghai is up +0.3%. But Singapore has opened down -0.2%. Wall Street ended its Wednesday session marginally higher, up +0.3% but that is a recovery from mid-session blahs.

OIL HOLDS BY SOFTISH
The oil price in the US is down slightly from yesterday at this time, now just under US$63/bbl and holding its lower level. And the international Brent price is now just under US$66/bbl.

CARBON PRICE HOLDS
There were few trades today and the price held at $57.00. The next official carbon auction is on September 10, 2025. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD FIRMS SLIGHTLY
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$13 from this time yesterday, still at US$3365/oz.

NZD IN ANOTHER MINOR FIRMING
The Kiwi dollar is up +20 bps from this time yesterday at 59.8 USc because of the continuing downgrade in the USD. Against the Aussie we are down -10 bps at 91.2 AUc. Against the euro we are up +10 bps at just on 51.1 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is up a bit more than +10 bps at 67.3.

BITCOIN AT NEW RECORD
The bitcoin price is now at US$125,595 and up +3.4% from this time yesterday and to a record high. Volatility has been moderate at just on +/-2.1%.

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