NZ dollar benefits from weaker USD, supportive domestic data

Wednesday 10th October 2018

The New Zealand dollar gained as the greenback continued to ease in Asia and as investors were cheered by positive domestic data.

The kiwi traded at 64.84 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 64.66 US cents at 8am and 64.44 cents yesterday. The trade-weighted index advanced to 70.98 from 70.64.

The US dollar remained under pressure after the yield on US 10-year Treasuries eased 2 basis points to 3.21 percent. The kiwi also benefited after ANZ's inflation gauge yesterday indicated an accelerating pace of price rises in the September quarter. It got a further lift today on news that New Zealand spending on electronic cards grew in every sector for a second month running in August.

"There was a bit of a reversal in the US dollar and some reasonably supportive kiwi data," said Ross Weston, head of trading for Kiwibank. "The card spending data was nearly twice what the forecast was so the kiwi has picked up and taken notice."

He said it looks like the local currency has "finally found a base" around 64.50 US cents and is just bouncing off that. He notes, however, next week's second-quarter inflation data - due Tuesday - will be key for direction.

Weston said investors largely overlooked news that Fonterra had lowered its forecast payout to farmers for a second time as global demand growth lags behind an increased supply. The move was widely expected, he said.

The local currency traded at 91.09 Australian cents from 90.95 cents yesterday and rose to 4.4862 Chinese yuan from 4.4571 yuan. It increased to 73.29 yen from 72.88 yen yesterday and traded at 49.27 British pence from 49.22 pence. The kiwi increased to 56.33 euro cents from 56.07 cents.

New Zealand's two-year rate lifted 1 basis point to 2.01 percent while 10-year swaps eased 2 basis points to 2.91 percent.

(BusinessDesk)

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