The NZDUSD opens at 0.7195 (mid-rate) this morning.
The NZD continued to trade tight ranges against all its rivals during our trading session on Friday before giving up ground as global sentiment waned on concerns about the integrity.
The weekend’s US data releases produced mixed results with new home sales for the month of January falling short of expectations. The Commerce Department report showed new home sales climbed by 3.7% to an annual rate of 555k in January after falling by 7% to a downwardly revised 535k in December, the forecast was for new home sales to rise by 7.5% to 576k from December’s previously reported 536k.
Consumer sentiment in the US for the month of February was upwardly revised to 96.3 from a preliminary reading of 95.7, this was slightly ahead of forecast upward revision of 96.0.
With little in the way of domestic data this week direction will be driven by offshore releases which includes President Trump’s first State of the Union speech on Wednesday and Fed Chair Yellen’s address on the US economic outlook at the Executives Club of Chicago on Friday night.
Global equity markets closed out the week mixed- Dow +0.05%, S&P 500 +0.14%, FTSE -0.38%, DAX -1.20%, CAC -0.94%, Nikkei -0.45%, Shanghai +0.06%.
Gold prices gained 1.6% over the course of the week closing on Friday at $1,256 an ounce, WTI Crude Oil after trading to a new 2017 high of $54.45 a barrel gold closed out the week at $53.99 a barrel.
Current indicative rates:
NZDUSD 0.7195 -0.5%
NZDEUR 0.6808 -0.4%
NZDGBP 0.5765 0.1%
NZDJPY 81.74 -0.9%
NZDAUD 0.9378 0.1%
NZDCAD 0.9425 -0.6%
Upcoming Data releases (NZST):
- 10:45 - Visitor Arrivals m/m
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »
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