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The Opening Bell: Where currencies start for Monday, March 5, 2012

Currencies
The Opening Bell: Where currencies start for Monday, March 5, 2012

By Dan Bell

The NZD/USD continued to weaken over the weekend and opens around 0.8280/0.8310 this morning.

A weaker tone for equities and commodities on Friday night with the S&P 500 down 0.31% and the CRB Index -0.97% led by Oil prices off 1.97%.

The EUR/USD is trading under 1.32 and the AUD/USD is at 1.073 as the USD benefits from ‘safe haven’ flows.

After the European Central Banks LTRO on Wednesday night investors have had little reason to go ‘long’ risk assets.

German Retail Sales were weaker, Spain pushed back on their deficit target, and rumours of a potential delay in Greece getting all of their second bailout funds weighed on risk appetite.

The NZD is down against the major cross rates and opens at 0.7720 AUD, 0.6280 EUR, 0.5235 GBP and 67.80 JPY.

The big one from NZ this week is the RBNZ OCR/MPS on Thursday morning. While no change is expected to the OCR at 2.5% the accompanying statement will be closely watched. We also get the RBA rate announcement tomorrow afternoon.

From the US the market will be focusing on Non Farm Payrolls/Unemployment data on Friday night NZT.

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

(Updated with Dow close)

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