By Dan Bell
The NZD/USD rallied almost a cent on Friday night to hit an interbank high of 0.8250 and opens around 0.8220 this morning.
Risk sentiment was generally positive across the board with global stocks finishing the week on a positive note.
The S&P 500 closed up 1.3% on Friday to record a 4.1% increase for the week.
Despite mostly stronger than expected economic news from the US last week- better housing data, lower jobless claims, consumer confidence at 4 ½ highs, the USD is weaker against most major currencies.
The EUR/USD is trading at 1.2957 this morning and the AUD/USD at 1.0450.
The USD wasn’t the weakest currency over the last week with the Japanese Yen losing ground against most major currencies.
The NZD/JPY is trading at 6 month highs close to 68.00. Japan is going through a leadership change at a government and central bank level and the new policy makers are expected to be more willing to weaken the Yen to help Japan’s struggling exporter based industries.
The NZD opens at current indicative levels against the major cross rates: 0.7867 AUD, 0.6346 EUR, 0.5135 GBP, 67.72 JPY, and 0.8164 CAD.
The focus over the next 24 hours will be on the Eurogroup finance minister’s meeting where a Greek debt deal is expected to be announced. We would imagine a reasonable sell off in ‘risk’ if this doesn’t come to fruition.
Nothing to report from NZ today. Tomorrow we get the RBNZ survey of inflation expectations and Trade Balance numbers.
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here
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