The NZDUSD opens around 0.6466 (mid-rate) this morning and is trading at new 6 year lows.
It has been an extremely volatile night, led by freefalling equity markets.
Chinese equity markets lead the sell off with the Shanghai Index down 8.49%.
At one stage US markets were down over 5% and finished the session down 3.94%.
The VIX Index- the so called ‘fear index’ which measures expectations of market volatility, spiked to over 40 overnight, which are the same levels witnessed during the heights of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.
At one stage the NZD/USD dropped over 4% within minutes but has recovered most of these losses as the markets entered a panic sell off reminiscent of the Lehman Brothers collapse in Sep 2008.
Gold prices closed are down $8 to $1151 an ounce, WTI Crude Oil shed 5.9% overnight trading at $38.06 a barrel.
NZDUSD 0.6466 -3.1%
NZDEUR 0.5573 -4.9%
NZDGBP 0.4100 -3.7%
NZDJPY 76.60 -5.7%
NZDAUD 0.9036 -1.2%
NZDCAD 0.8591 -2.4%
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »
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