This morning, following strong retail sales data out for the December 2014 quarter, the New Zealand dollar touched a new post-float high against the Australian dollar.
It hit 96.48 AUc briefly at 10:58 am before settling back to 96.3 AUc, although the trends from there are uncertain.
The previous post float high was 96.36 AUc on January 8, 2015. (On October 18, 1973 - and for that day only - NZ$1 = AU$1.0007, having hovered above 99.5 AUc as it could do in the days of pegged rates where the not-independent Reserve Bank or the Government manipulated the rates within a very narrow band.)
The trigger was this morning's strong retail sales which rose +4.7% pa, up from +4.1% in September and +3.9% in the same quarter a year ago.
Impressive growth was recorded for businesses involved in eating out - "Food and Beverage" in the official lingo - which were up +11.7% year on year.
Hardware stores also grew well, showing +9.4% annual gains. Furniture stores recorded +6.0% growth.
At the other end of the scale, petrol retailing only grew +0.6% year on year, reflecting much lower pump prices.
Another survey, the BNZ-BusinessNZ PSI index of service sector activity was released earlier than the retail data, and that too showed expanding conditions.
The overall PSI rose to a brisk 57.8 s.a. in January from 56.7 in December.
BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said, "The relative health in the latest PSI gels well with a burgeoning labour market, high net inward migration and a reheating housing market. It's a big relief to see the PSI get even stronger in January, compared to the abrupt slowing of its manufacturing cousin the PMI."
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