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
Heartland Bank (-15 bps) and Avanti Finance both trimmed their floating rates today. But check out the swap rate chart below which suggests fixed rate cuts are unlikely any time soon. 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
Squirrel reduced its on call account by -25 bps to 2.0%. And we expect board TD reductions tomorrow from at least one more bank. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

MORE POSITIVE FOR MORE HOUSES, NOT SO FOR OTHER BUILDING
Residential building consents were on the rise in October, especially for townhouses, but non-residential consents were still in decline. Residential building work could pick up next year, however the outlook for non-residential work isn’t so rosy.

QUIZ TIME
Life might be busy, but take a break and do our newest quiz. It is refreshed and ready for you again.

GREAT TIME TO BUY?
We are reporting this, because it is out there, ASB says its survey shows housing confidence is at a 15 year high. They claim the survey shows nearly one-third of respondents say now is a good time to buy property, the strongest result since 2010. These results also indicate the majority anticipate further drops in mortgage rates, but house price expectations remain modest. They conclude it is a “great time for buyers, with lower interest rates and strong housing supply”.

NZX50 WEAKER
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index was down -0.3% so far on Monday. That puts it down -0.6% over the past five working days. It is up +2.8% year-to-date. From a year ago it is now up +2.4%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +1.0% today. The gainers are led by Vulcan Steel, Vector, Napier Port and F&P Healthcare while the big decliners include Heartland, Tourism Holdings, a2 Milk and Investore.

MORE TIER 2 FUNDS SOUGHT
Kiwibank said it is seeking more Tier 2 capital via a $200 mln of unsecured subordinated notes, and they have retained the option to take unlimited oversubscriptions at their discretion. But because it will be used as loss-absorbing capital it will be expensive and they expect to pay up to +1.7% above the equivalent five year swap rate which today is about 3.42%, so the gross cost will be something more than 5.1%. Kiwibank’s five year TD rate today is 4.00%, but at least that is taxpayer guaranteed whereas the Tier 2 Notes will come with a heap of risk. (Never forget SOE Solid Energy.)

FORTY-SIX PERCENT SURGE HIGHER THAN THE PREVIOUS RECORD
Record trading in the May 2036 NZGB on secondary markets shoved the total turnover in NZGBs last week to a record high $121.3 bln. The previous record high was $82.8 bln in the week of October 3, 2025.

OUTAGE
In Australia, their main stock exchange, the ASX, has an embarrassing outage in its systems for the publication of company announcements. Securities halted as a result of a price sensitive announcement will remain halted until the issue is resolved. This could be very tricky for dual listed ASX/NZX companies because they will retain their obligation to report in New Zealand, but are unable to report in Australia.

RISING
The Melbourne Institute inflation gauge for November rose again and is now further above the RBA’s 2-3% inflation target range. Interestingly, while this results is higher, it is lower than the official October CPI rate of 3.8%.

NO BOUNCEBACK
After a -2.6% quarter-on-quarter fall in company profits in Q2-2025, they were expected to bounce back in Q3-2025. But in the event they stalled, unchanged, in a disappointing outcome and only +1.1% higher than year-ago levels.

CULMINATING?
And staying in Australia, the Cotality house price tracking rose +1.0% in November, a slight softening from the +1.1% gain in October. Annual growth lifted to +7.1%, with quarterly gains tracking a +13.2% annualised pace. Sydney and Melbourne are the laggards, indicating that affordability has reached its serviceability limits.

SMALL CONTRACTION CONFIRMED
The alternative China PMI to the official version has also slipped. The S&PGlobal manufacturing sector PMI shows that conditions deteriorated in November, not by a lot, but certainly going the wrong way. There was no growth in new orders.

SWAP RATES RISE YET AGAIN
Wholesale swap rates are probably higher yet again today, continuing the shift up. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was up +1 bp at 2.45% on Friday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield is up +2 bps at 4.55%. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 1.83%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +1 bps at 4.42%. The RBNZ data is now ‘prior day’ with Friday’s rate up +2 bps at 4.36%. The UST 10yr yield is up +2 bps at 4.04%.

EQUITIES MIXED
The local equity market is down -0.5% in Monday trade so far. The ASX200 is down -0.3% in afternoon trade. Tokyo is down -1.4% in its opening trade. Hong Kong is up +1.1% and Shanghai is up +0.3%. Singapore is +0.4% firmer at its open. Wall Street looks like it will return from its Thanksgiving holiday weekend down -0.3% when it opens tomorrow. At lease that is what the current futures trade indicates.

OIL ON HOLD
The oil price in the US unchanged at just under US$59.50/bbl and the international Brent price is still at just over US$63/bbl.

CARBON PRICE STALLS LOW
We can’t find any trades again today so the price holds at the low $40/NZU, the lowest since July 2023. (It peaked at $90.5/NZU in September 2022.) 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 RISES
In early Asian trade, gold is up +US$23/oz from this morning, now at US$4241/oz.

NZD STABLE
The Kiwi dollar is essentially unchanged from this morning, still just on 57.4 USc. Against the Aussie we are holding at 87.6 AUc. Against the euro we are also little-changed at 49.4 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is at just under 62 ans also little-changed.

BITCOIN DROPS
The bitcoin price is now at US$87,231 and down a sharp -5.0% from this morning. Volatility has been moderate at just on +/- 2.7%. South African-owned Yearn Finance, a decentralized asset management service, is suffering issues affecting liquidity in the whole crypto sector.

Select chart tabs

US$
AU$
TWI-5
Â¥en
Â¥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 ».