Sharechat Logo

NZ dollar holds above 70 US cents amid ongoing concerns over European debt

Thursday 18th February 2010

Text too small?

The New Zealand dollar held above 70 US cents amid ongoing concerns over European sovereign debt, as upbeat data across the Atlantic reinforced the prospect that the world’s largest economy is on the rebound up.  

The European Union finance ministers’ meeting this week failed to allay fears about the debt track of the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Greece and Spain), and the euro pushed lower after Robert Mundell, who’s known as the creator of the European currency, told Bloomberg TV that Italy is the biggest threat to the region. This was in contrast to US data which showed building permits and housing starts gained last month, and in line with a gradual recovery of the sector. There was some good news out of Europe with Spain and Portugal bond offers attracting strong support.  

“Europe has pledged its support for Greece, although no-one knows what that means,” said Khoon Goh, senior markets economist at ANZ National Bank. “The ongoing concerns around sovereign debt in that region and some decent data out of the US provided support to the U.S. dollar – in the current environment the kiwi and Australian dollars are following the broad direction of the majors.”  

The kiwi slipped to 70.29 US cents from 70.65 cents yesterday, and was little changed at 65.14 on the trade-weighted index, or TWI, a measure of the currency against a basket of five trading partners, from 65.10. It gained to 64.03 yen from 63.85 yen yesterday, and declined to 78.21 Australian cents from 78.35 cents. It gained to 51.65 euro cents from 51.30 cents yesterday, and inched up to 44.79 pence from 44.76 pence.  

Goh said the currency may trade between 70.10 US cents and 70.50 cents today, with the highlights being a speech by the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Assistant Governor and the ANZ Roy Morgan consumer confidence survey.  

“With unemployment at 7.4%, it will be interesting to see how people are feeling when they open their credit card bills,” Goh said.  

 

 

 

Businesswire.co.nz



  General Finance Advertising    

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:
Your name:
Your email:
Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Related News:

NZ dollar gains on G20 preference for growth
NZ dollar dips as Wellington CBD checked for quake damage
NZ dollar gains, bolstered by RBA minutes, strong dairy prices
NZ dollar falls after central bank says it may scale up currency intervention
NZ dollar gains before CPI, helped by dairy gains, rally on Wall Street
NZ dollar trades little changed as US budget talks bear down on deadline
NZ dollar falls with equities on view US to sail over fiscal cliff
NZ dollar weakens as fiscal cliff looms, long bets unwind
NZ dollar sinks to three-week low as equities fall, fiscal talks in focus
NZ dollar slips as fiscal cliff talks grind slower in Washington