The NZDUSD opens around 0.7715 this morning.
The USD strengthened, and NZDUSD & AUDUSD both weakened, as the markets resume pricing in the possibility the US Federal Reserve may begin to taper its bond-buying program as early as September.
However, any such scaling back will be based on overall economic data, and not overly biased towards the most recent data.
The NZDUSD traded as low as 0.7711, and has not managed much of a bounce in early Monday morning trading. The AUDUSD hit a new 33-month low of 0.9112, while the NZDAUD surged to a 0.8475 high.
USD reserves held by global central banks edged higher in Q1 2013, according to data from the International Monetary Fund showed. Reserved totaled USD$3.76 trillion.
The data also showed the central banks held AUD$98.7 billion in Aussie dollars, which is 0.9% of total reserves.
It is a big week for central bank interest rate meetings, with the Reserve Bank of Australia meeting on Tuesday, and Bank of England & European Central Bank meetings Thursday night.
Global equity market were generally weaker for the quarterly close, although the Asian bourses showed very strong gains.
The Gold Price advanced over 2% Friday on reported short-covering. However, gold still dropped 23% in value during the 2nd quarter of 2013.
The NZD opens at 0.7715 USD, 0.8460 AUD, 0.5925 EUR, 0.5070GBP, & 76.50 JPY.
No domestic data today.
Chinese Manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers index) hit the tapes at 1:00pm.
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »
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