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The Opening Bell: Where currencies start on Friday, February 8, 2019

Currencies
The Opening Bell: Where currencies start on Friday, February 8, 2019

By the XE Corporate team

The Kiwi opens down at 0.6756.

A lot of the action on Thursday was the damage done to the Kiwi as New Zealand’s Unemployment rate come out. It came in poorly, ticking up to 4.3%, and revising last quarters up to 4%. The NZD was hit hard and fast, selling off by about 1% across the board.

The Bank of England left rates unchanged at 0.75% as widely expected, but alluded to the fact that were it not for Brexit uncertainty, rates could be higher. This now makes the market think that if a deal is struck, not only will you get the initial large increase in the Pound, you will get follow through on the fact that the next move in rates from there looks likely to be up.

Out of the Europe, the European commission has dropped growth forecasts for 2019 GDP to 1.3% from 1.9%. This is a pretty large decrease, followed by a pretty large yawn from the markets. Be careful though, as it is just adding more straw to the back of global growth.

Employment data out of Canada is the only expected thing on the calendar of note.

Global equity markets have had a quiet day yesterday, Dow -1.25%, S&P 500 -1.32%, FTSE -1.11%, DAX -2.67%, CAC -1.84%, Nikkei -0.59%, Shanghai +1.3%.

Gold prices are flat, still trading at 1,313 an ounce. WTI Crude Oil prices have fallen, down 3.4% trading at $52.22 a barrel

Current indicative rates:

NZDUSD 0.6756 -1.1%
NZDEUR  0.5949 -1.0%
NZDGBP 0.5210 -1.3%
NZDJPY 74.19 -1.2%
NZDAUD 0.9516 -0.9%
NZDCAD 0.8988 -0.3%
GBPNZD 1.9191 1.3%

Upcoming Data releases (NZST):

  • 02:30 - CAD Unemployment rate

 

 

 

 

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Marcus Phillips is the Affiliate manager at xe money transfer in Auckland. You can contact him here »

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