The NZDUSD opens at 0.6802 (mid-rate) this morning.
The NZD continued to out-perform on Friday helped higher as both commodity prices and equity markets extended their weekly gains.
A stronger than expected U.S. non-farm payroll report failed to boost the USD with investors focusing on the unchanged unemployment rate of 4.9% and a slight dip in wage price inflation (the average hourly employee earnings slipped 3 cents or 0.1 percent to $25.35).
The NFP report showed an increase of 242k jobs in February exceeding economists estimates of an increase of 190k jobs, while the report also upwardly revised both December’s and November’s previously reported jobs data by a net 30k jobs.
Global equity markets closed out the week broadly higher - Dow +0.37%, S&P 500 +0.33%, FTSE +1.13%, DAX +0.74%, CAC +0.92%, Nikkei +0.32%, Shanghai +0.50%.
Gold prices were little changed on Friday closing out the week at $1258 an ounce, WTI Crude Oil extended its weekly gains on Friday up 3.6% to close at $35.92 (8-week high) a barrel.
Current indicative rates:
NZDUSD 0.6802 0.7%
NZDEUR 0.6178 0.3%
NZDGBP 0.4785 0.3%
NZDJPY 77.41 1.0%
NZDAUD 0.9172 0.2%
NZDCAD 0.9062 0.4%
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »
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