The NZDUSD opens at 0.7329 (mid-rate) this morning.
As expected the weekend’s election has positioned New Zealand First’s Winston Peter’s in the roll of “King or Queen maker ” but with the National party still in the box seat the NZD has so far managed to hold onto Fridays gains.
Angela Merkel has won a fourth term as Chancellor after her Christian Democratic Union party gained 32.5% of the German vote with her main rival the SPD party only managing 20% as for the first time since the second world war the far-right party with 13.5% of the vote will have representation in the German parliament. The EUR is slightly softer following this result.
Euro-zone flash manufacturing and services PMI data releases were ahead of expectations for the month of September, with manufacturing PMI increasing to 58.2 (exp 57.2) and services PMI increasing to 55.6 (exp 54.7).
Late on Friday evening following Thursday’s announcement from UK Prime Minister May’s announcement that the UK were prepared to pay the EU a EUR20 billion Brexit deposit, rating agency Moody’s downgraded the UK’s credit rating one notch to Aa2.
Global equity markets closed out the week mixed- Dow -0.04%, S&P 500 +0.06%, FTSE +0.64%, DAX -0.06%, CAC +0.78%, Nikkei -0.25%, Shanghai -0.16%.
Gold prices edged higher on Friday closing out the week at $1,296 an ounce, WTI Crude Oil was little changed on Friday, closing out the week above $50 a barrel at $50.66.
Current indicative rates:
NZDUSD 0.7329 0.2%
NZDEUR 0.6145 0.3%
NZDGBP 0.5425 0.7%
NZDJPY 82.25 0.0%
NZDAUD 0.9215 0.0%
NZDCAD 0.9041 0.2%
GBPNZD 1.8433 -0.7%
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »
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