The NZDUSD opens at 0.6550 (mid-rate) this morning.
The AUD was the best performer in the last 24 hours, gaining 1% against the USD and 1.3% against the kiwi after a much stronger than expected employment report yesterday afternoon.
The Fed’s Yellen, Bullard, Lacker, Evans and Dudley were all in the headlines overnight expressing their individual views regarding a December rate hike. The market has now priced a 65-70% chance of this eventuality.
The US initial jobless claims came in at 276,000 overnight, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised level. Economists had expected jobless claims to dip to 270,000.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi attended a hearing before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament in Brussels overnight. "We will closely monitor the risks to price stability and thoroughly assess the strength and persistence of the factors that are slowing the return of inflation to levels below, but close to, 2 percent,"
The asset purchase programme is considered to be a particularly powerful and flexible instrument. "Other instruments could also be activated to strengthen the impact of the purchase programme if necessary," Draghi added.
Further, he observed that downside risks stemming from global growth and trade became clearly visible. Moreover, signs of a sustained turnaround in core inflation have somewhat weakened and a sustained normalization of inflation could take longer than anticipated in March, he said.
Global equity markets are broadly lower; Dow -0.89%, S&P 500 -0.68%, FTSE -1.88%, DAX -1.15%, CAC -1.94%, Nikkei +0.03%, Shanghai -0.48%.
Gold prices are down $4 currently trading at $1081 an ounce, WTI Crude Oil is down 3% to $41.70 a barrel.
Indicative mid-rate pricing:
NZDUSD 0.6525 -0.4%
NZDEUR 0.6057 -0.8%
NZDGBP 0.4288 -0.5%
NZDJPY 80.12 -0.5%
NZDAUD 0.9163 -1.3%
NZDCAD 0.8676 -0.2%
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »
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