Dene Mackenzie

The Government seemed hell-bent on destroying New Zealand's saving culture, Labour finance spokesman Grant Robertson said yesterday.

Tightening lending margins do not seem to have affected New Zealand's five major banks which continued to show strong profits and lending growth in the three months ended March.

A strong focus on providing benefits to members helped SBS report a record profit for the year ended March.

Economic growth is expected to slip slightly to 3.1% annually in March following a slowing of growth in the March quarter.

All of the listed electricity companies were offering reasonable dividend years and while the earnings outlook for the sector as a whole was muted, Forsyth Barr broker Andrew Rooney expected dividend payments to lift.

Temperatures across the country were colder in May than in the same month last year, particularly in Auckland, but they proved of little help to apparel retailers, Forsyth Barr broker Suzanne Kinnaird said.

Security company Wynyard was operating in two of the hottest technology spaces of security and big data and had already moved to a strategy of increasing its focus on the United States, Forsyth Barr broker Andrew Rooney said.

Currency specialists are busily downgrading their forecasts for the New Zealand dollar after the Reserve Bank on Thursday surprised the market by cutting the official cash rate to 3.25%.

The three GlobalDairyTrade auctions between now and the July official cash rate review by the Reserve Bank will play a major part in deciding when the next cut in the OCR will happen, economists say.

Prices in the ANZ Monthly Inflation Gauge fell 0.1% in May following a 0.2% fall in April, the first time there had been two consecutive falls.

The announcement of a special dividend for Contact Energy shareholders could mean the electricity generating company was being prepared for sale, Harbour Asset analyst Craig Stent said yesterday.