NZ dollar drifts ahead of Wheeler speech, FOMC

Monday 27th July 2015

The New Zealand dollar rose against the US dollar ahead of a speech by Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler on Wednesday and a US interest rate review at the end of the week.

The kiwi edged up to 65.88 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 65.71 cents at 8am and 65.76 cents on Friday in New York. The trade-weighted index was little changed at 70.22 from 70.30 last week.

The kiwi gained 1 percent last week after the Reserve Bank disappointed some investors who were expecting a more aggressive approach to rate cuts, and are waiting for an update from Wheeler on Wednesday when he will talk about the state of the economy. Wheeler started lowering the official cash rate in June as dairy prices fell faster than the currency, putting pressure on the sector which faces a second season of low farmgate returns.

"Markets probably started the week off thinking about what Wheeler's going to say on Wednesday, that's his opportunity to get anything that didn't go the way he planned it on the OCR statement," said Martin Rudings, senior dealer foreign exchange at OMF in Wellington. "There's not a lot of data for the kiwi this week."

Investors will be watching the US Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee's interest rate review for any guidance on when the Fed plans to start raising interest rates from the near zero policy it's been running since the global financial crisis.

"We still have a lot of pressure on commodity currencies, so no one's going to increase their risk ahead of the FOMC or ahead of Wheeler's statement," OMF's Rudings said.

New Zealand's two year swap rate crept down to 2.86 percent from 2.87 percent last week, and the 10 year swap rate declined to 3.61 percent from 3.65 percent.

The local currency increased to 90.36 Australian cents from 90.20 cents last week, and gained to 4.0902 Chinese yuan from 4.0803 yuan. It was little changed at 59.85 euro cents from 59.81 cents on Friday, and 42.42 British pence from 42.35 pence. The kiwi was unchanged at 81.34 yen from the New York close.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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