Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today (or if you already work from home, before you shutdown your laptop).
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Heartland Bank reduced its 2 year fixed rate to 5.99%, and that is notable because all their home loan rates are now below 6% (including their floating rate).
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None today here either. But we are expecting at least one big bank to make changes tomorrow.
NO LET-UP AS INFLATION PLATEAUS HIGH
The big story today was the Q4-2022 consumer price inflation data, which basically came in unchanged from Q3, at 7.2%. Non-tradable inflation is running at 6.5%. Bank analysts saw signs that inflation may have peaked and all said so loudly, pushing the narrative that the RBNZ should ease off their indicated +75 bps February hike. Banks don’t enjoy the adjustment of a slower economy that high interest rates are inducing especially in the housing market. But in fact this data reveals inflation way higher than the RBNZ policy target, and with little actual concrete evidence it will retreat to that level any time soon. Remember, food price inflation ran at 10.7% in the quarter. Having said all that, financial markets are betting rates will ease from here. (See below.)
CREDIT CARD USE WEAKER
Credit card spending in December was weak. In fact it came in fractionally below the December 2021 levels, so a ‘real’ fall. For all of 2022, this spending rose +7.2%. So the December levels are a fast falling away.
CREDIT…
