NZ dollar stagnates amid US and British holidays

Tuesday 28th May 2019

The New Zealand dollar was little changed with the major United States and British markets closed for holidays and after US President Donald Trump made positive noises about reaching a trade agreement with Japan.

The kiwi was trading at 65.51 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 65.41 at 7.55am and the trade-weighted index edged up to 72.07 points from 72.07.

“The New Zealand dollar has been stuck in the doldrums,” says Peter Cavanaugh, the senior client advisor at Bancorp Treasury Services.

“The only things the market has to fret about are Brexit and the European elections, neither of which have much impact in New Zealand."

Trump ended his four-day state visit to Japan today but held a joint press conference with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at which Trump said he wants to remove trade barriers to give US exports a fair footing in Japan and expressed hope that will happen.

The more contentious issue is the US trade war with China but there have been no new developments on that front.

The US markets were closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday while British markets were also closed for its Spring Bank Holiday.

The New Zealand dollar was unchanged at 94.56 Australian cents, at 51.69 British pence from 51.47, at 58.57 euro cents from 58.47, at 71.75 yen from 71.62 and at 4.5237 Chinese yuan from 4.5101.

The New Zealand two-year swap rate fell to 1.4771 percent from 1.4830 on Friday while the 10-year swap rate eased to 1.9700 percent from 1.9750.

(BusinessDesk)

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