New Zealand dollar trades below US$0.58

Daily Currency Update

The New Zealand dollar is weaker this morning when valued against the US dollar. Despite the New Zealand dollar’s gains during the last week, the NZD is struggling for support. This comes as the markets turn bearish and move away from riskier currencies such as NZD. NZD/USD pair ended the day a little lower on Friday, losing some 0.26% from the high of US$0.5873 and reaching a low of US$0.5782. Market sentiment has soured ahead of the US core PCE price index – the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation. Economists expect the data to show that core inflation continues to climb, which could force the Fed to keep aggressively raising interest rates.
On the data front, there are no scheduled releases today. On Tuesday, we will see the release of monthly Building Consents, which is a leading gauge of future construction activity because obtaining government approval is among the first steps in constructing a new building. On Wednesday, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) will release its Financial Stability Report, which provides insights into the bank’s view of inflation, growth, and other economic conditions that will affect interest rates in the future. Statistics New Zealand will also hand down the quarterly Unemployment Rate change, which is expected to go down from 3.3% to 3.2%. On Thursday, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) will release the Commodity Price Index, which looks at the average price of the nation’s main commodity exports are sampled on the global market and then compared to the previous sampling.