The New Zealand dollar slumped yesterday and retained its losses today due to poor employment data released from New Zealand by the end of the Tuesday’s trading session.
New Zealand employment fell by 0.4 percent in the September quarter from the previous three months while analysts had predicted an increase at the same rate. The unemployment rate ticked up by 0.1 percentage point to 6.0 percent, in line with expectations. Released earlier during the Tuesday’s session, the GlobalDairyTrade Price Index showed a drop by 7.4 percent.
Market participants were speculating that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand may cut its interest rates in December. The latest economic indicators reinforced prospects for monetary easing. Unsurprisingly, this hurt the New Zealand currency.
NZD/USD dropped from 0.6743 to 0.6661 yesterday and traded at about 0.6657 as of 4:17 GMT today. NZD/JPY was down from 81.42 to 80.64 on Tuesday and remained near that level today. EUR/NZD rallied from 1.6320 to 1.6446 during the Tuesday’s trading session and stayed close to that level during the Wednesday’s session.
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