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The Opening Bell: Where currencies start on Friday, February 5, 2016

Currencies
The Opening Bell: Where currencies start on Friday, February 5, 2016

By Dan Bell

The NZDUSD opens at 0.6735 (mid-rate) this morning.

In a continuation from yesterday we saw the USD extend its losses overnight after a string of poor US data.

Weekly Jobless Claims came in worse than expected climbing to 285,000, an increase of 8000 from the previous weeks number. U.S Factory Orders data showed a drop of 2.9% in December and U.S Labour Productivity fell a more than expected 3% in Q4.

The Bank of England unanimously agreed to keep rates on hold signalling they are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The central bank also downgraded its growth projections citing weak global growth. 

Elsewhere ECB president Draghi spoke of global forces hampering Eurozone inflation. His mention of further accommodative monetary policy and the risks of acting too late outweighing the risks of acting too early failed to lower the EUR/USD which broke up through 1.1200

Global equity markets had a mixed performance. Dow -0.02%, S&P 500 -0.26%, FTSE +1.06%, DAX -0.44%, CAC +1.57%, Nikkei -0.85%, Shanghai +1.53%.

Gold prices are down 0.14% currently trading at $1155 an ounce, WTI Crude Oil also slightly down, currently -0.90%  at $31.99 a barrel.

Current indicative rates:

NZDUSD       0.6735      0.7%
NZDEUR       0.5995     -0.2%
NZDGBP       0.4604      0.7%
NZDJPY          78.43       0.0%
NZDAUD       0.9340      0.2%
NZDCAD       0.9241      0.1%

Upcoming data releases (NZST)

  • 1:30pm RBA Monetary Policy Statement
  •  Retail Sales m/m 
  • U.S Non-Farm Employment Change overnight

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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »

Daily exchange rates

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Source: RBNZ
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End of day UTC
Source: CoinDesk

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