What happened Friday | interest.co.nz

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
No changes to report today. All rates are here. And note, you can compare mortgage offers with our new calculator that takes into account other costs and cashback incentives, here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
There are no changes to report today here either. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

GOING SHORT IN HOPES OF LOWER RATES
The latest Reserve Bank figures show short term fixed and floating mortgages found renewed favour in September ahead of the Reserve Bank’s Official Cash Rate decision on October 8, 2025.

PRIORITISING MARGINS TO PROTECT PROFITS
When retail sales are soft, the temptation is to chase for topline sales, usually with discounting to overcome consumer reluctance to spend. But Briscoes has gone the other way, targeting improved margins. The Briscoes ‘bargains’ haven’t been as good while they do this. “With inventory in excellent shape at half-year, we made a strategic decision to shift focus from driving top-line sales to stabilising gross profit margin percentage,” the company said when it posted its Q3 results, where topline sales were down -1.8% in the period. “Looking ahead, we remain cautious about the retail environment. While we’re encouraged by recent monetary policy shifts, in the absence of a clear uplift in consumer sentiment, our full-year net profit after tax guidance (to 25 January 2026) remains at around $60 million.”

MORE NEW STUFF
Interest.co.nz has teamed up with Quashed to help you track insurance premium changes for car insurance. Here’s our new tool to help you wrestle with car insurance renewals. And check us out on Monday, when we will be launching another (different) new feature.

NZX50 RETREATS
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is now up +0.6% so far on Friday in a firming trend. That puts it +0.7% higher over the past five working days. It is up just a bit less than +4.4% year-to-date. From a year ago it is now up +8.5%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare has risen another +0.7% so far today. Scales, Skellerup, EBOS, and Summerset gain as Vulcan Steel, Vital Healthcare, Briscoe and Hallensteins are the key decliners.

NOT LONG NOW
There are just 33 working days until the Christmas break. Just saying …

SWAP RATES SOFT
Wholesale swap rates are probably softer today across the board on global forces. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was down -3 bps on Thursday to 2.48%. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is down -3 bps at 4.34%. The China 10 year bond rate is up +1 bp at 1.75%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is down -4 bps at 4.12%. The RBNZ data is now all delayed with Thursday’s rate is up +4 bps to 4.13%. The UST 10yr yield is down -6 bps at 4.09%.

EQUITIES TRY A COMEBACK, PARTIALLY SUCCESSFUL
The local equity market is now up +0.6% in Friday trade so far in an unusual result compared to the other equity markets we follow. The ASX200 is down -0.2% in afternoon trade. Tokyo has resumed its decline, down -2.0% at its open. Hong Kong is down -0.7% at its open. Shanghai is down -0.3%. Singapore is up +0.3% at its open. Wall Street fell in Thursday trade and the S&P500 ended down -1.1% and resuming the falls of earlier in the week.

OIL HOLDS LOWER
The oil price in the US is little-changed at just over US$59.50/bbl and the international Brent price is still just on US$63.50/bbl.

CARBON PRICE STALLS
There have been virtually no trades today so the prices are holding at $50/NZU, its lowest since May. (Having noted that, we did see one tiny trade at under $44/NZU, likely an outlier.) The next official carbon auction is on December 3, 2025 and likely heading for another failure. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD FIRMER AGAIN
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$26 from yesterday, now at US$4001/oz.

NZD FALTERS
The Kiwi dollar is down -35 bps from yesterday at this time at just on 56.3 USc. Against the Aussie we are down -10 bps at 86.9 AUc. Against the euro we are down -40 bps at 48.8 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is down -40 bps at just over 60.9.

BITCOIN DROPS YET AGAIN
The bitcoin price is now at US$101,269 and down -2.2% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been modest at just over +/- 1.7%.

Select chart tabs

US$
AU$
TWI-5
¥en
¥uan
€uro
GBP
Bitcoin

Select chart tabs

1 year %
2 years %
3 years %
4 years %
5 years %
7 years %
10 years %

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».