Perriams Pacesetter — 19 October 2026

Every Monday we post some thoughts in our Perriams Pacesetter, containing fresh thoughts for the week, the weekend just gone, and a bit of left field. Click below to read.

GEM

Elon Musk unveils Teslas “flying car”.

I’ll have one of those if it means I don’t have to navigate road works anymore 😊

SPOTLIGHT

According to a peer-reviewed study of 10,000 adults the typical person spends six hours per day on their phone.

Surely not! And at what cost? What do you estimate your time to be each day?

Now by my calculation that’s roughly 15 years of continuous screen time over a lifetime.

TOPICAL

NZ’s population continues to increase with latest Stats NZ numbers showing an increase of 20,500 for the 12 months to August.

The provisional yearly net migration gain of 20,500 was made up of a gain of 58,800 non-NZ citizens and a migration loss of 38,200 new citizens.

There is a slowdown of those leaving for Aussie and that’s good to hear.

SPORTIFY

What a mecca of sport that’s on the table this coming week in Christchurch.

World Rugby League

The Black Caps

The Silver Ferns

TOPICAL

Our petrol is now more than 24% higher than a year ago and to state the obvious, it’s not helping our inflation pressures. We’ve got new headline inflation numbers due out on Thursday. In Auckland some service stations are advertising fuel at $4.11 a litre 😯

OF INTEREST

The top dog names in Christchurch;

Luna has overtaken Charlie as Christchurch favourite dog name.

Poppy was next and Bella rounded out the top four.

OF INTEREST

Research from global fintech Revolut and YouGov found nearly 6 in 10 kiwis (59%) say they work overtime.

AI

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, announced on 18 October that it plans to put 5% of its shares into a public-benefit fund, subject to shareholder approval. Potential uses include charitable donations and support for workers affected by AI, a focus on sharing the rewards, not just building the technology.

OPINION

National have ruled out completely working with the Opportunity Party but hold on, here’s the catch, that doesn’t rule out Act working with the Opportunity Party if need be, now does it?

THE MARKETS

Let’s take a look at the wealth of the nation to date:

How are New Zealanders feeling about money?

39.2% are feeling financially worse off

34% have little saved

31% have delayed spending

50.4% need $10k – $49,999 more

32% would struggle if income stopped

30.7% wouldn’t take a disliked job for more money

Source – Wealth of the Nation Survey

So where do you fit in?

OCR 2.5% ↑ July 2026 CPI 4.1% ↑ June 2026 Unemployment 5.3% ↓ March 2026 House Price Movement 2.3% ↑ July 2024 Rent Price Movement 4.3% ↑ July 2024

Only 67 days to go until Christmas!

PERRIAMS POWER RANKINGS – 19 October 2026

1. The Canadian women’s team win over the England Roses who had gone 40 tests unbeaten, the English Roses finally wilted.

2. King Country takes out the Meads cup against Mid Canterbury over the weekend and how fitting it was won by the providence that bares the ionic name, Colin Pinetree Meads.

3. New Zealand’s red hot world champion, kiwi bred Ka Ying Rising had to settle for second in the Everest horse race in Sydney on Saturday. What was so great about this race it was worth A $20 million.