The NZDUSD opens at 0.6743 (mid-rate) this morning.
The NZD is relatively unchanged from yesterday’s open against a basket of currencies, the CAD an exception which weakened 0.9% against the Kiwi .
Yesterday afternoon Australian labour force figures for February were as expected. Employment increased 10k, participation was 64.8% and the unemployment rate was steady at 5.7%.
Overnight data releases included the volume of U.K. Retail sales, which, for April 2016 is estimated to have increased by 4.3% from April 2015. April 2016 was estimated to be up on March by 1.3% from 0.6% expected and -0.5% from February.
U.S. Firms responding to the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey continued to report tenuous growth this month. The indicator for general activity was essentially unchanged in May and remained slightly negative at -1.8, and worse than the +3.2 expected. -1.6 printed the previous month.
U.S. Unemployment Insurance weekly claims were 278k for the week ending May 14th, a decrease of 16,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 294,000, and marginally more than the 276k market consensus.
G7 meetings start today and continue all day Saturday. The meetings are closed to the press but officials usually talk with reporters throughout the day, and a formal statement covering policy shifts and meeting objectives is usually released after the meetings have concluded.
Overnight we have the U.S. Existing Home Sales, Canadian Core CPI and Retail Sales, German PPI, and Eurozone Current Account.
Global equity markets are broadly lower: Dow -0.39%, S&P 500 -0.35%, FTSE -1.82%, DAX +1.48%, CAC -0.85%, Nikkei +0.01%, Shanghai -0.02%.
Gold prices are down $5 (-0.4%) currently trading at $1254 an ounce, WTI Crude Oil steady currently trading at $48.13 a barrel
Current indicative rates:
NZDUSD 0.6732 -1.2%
NZDEUR 0.5998 -0.2%
NZDGBP 0.4615 -2.0%
NZDJPY 74.11 -0.
NZDAUD 0.9317 0.2%
NZDCAD 0.8753 -0.4%
Upcoming Data Releases:
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10:45 - Visitor Arrivals m/m
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15:00 - Credit Card Spending y/y
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Dan Bell is the senior currency strategist at HiFX in Auckland. You can contact him here »
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