The NZDUSD opens sharply lower 0.7829 this morning.
The NZDUSD traded as high as 0.7975 before this morning’s unexpectedly hawkish FOMC Statement.
As expected the Federal Reserve announced its final round of quantitative easing, slashing purchases of Treasury’s and mortgage-back securities to zero from $15 billion.
Policy makers repeated their pledge to keep interest rates around their record lows for "a considerable time," but said interest rates may rise sooner than markets expect if the economic recovery continues to gather steam.
"Although inflation in the near term will likely be held down by lower energy prices and other factors, the Committee judges that the likelihood of inflation running persistently below 2 percent has diminished somewhat since early this year.”
“A range of labour market indicators suggests that underutilization of labour resources is gradually diminishing.”
Global equity markets closed higher before the FOMC announcement. - Dow -0.28%, Nikkei +1.46%, Shanghai +1.50%, FTSE +0.81% DAX +0.16%, CAC -0.05%
Gold prices have plummeted $14 to $1,213, Oil prices are slightly higher at $82.00 a barrel up 0.66%
The current indicative mid-rates are:
NZDUSD 0.7829
NZDEUR 0.6201
NZDGBP 0.4895
NZDJPY 85.29
NZDAUD 0.8953
NZDCAD 0.8792
Domestic data releases today:
9:00 RBNZ Rate Statement
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »
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