The New Zealand dollar fell versus its most-traded peers, with the exception of the extremely weak Japanese yen, after underwhelming macroeconomic releases in New Zealand as well as in New Zealand’s major trading partner — China.
Statistics New Zealand reported that building consents fell 7.6% in June following the 6.9% rise in May. ANZ Business Confidence dropped from -39.0 in June to -44.9 in July. The report said:
Headline business confidence and firms’ views of their own activity continued to fall in July, reaching their lowest levels since May 2008 and May 2009 respectively. Activity sub-indicators were weak across the board; retail is the least confident sector.
As for China’s data, the official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 51.2 in July from 51.5 in the previous month, below the consensus forecast of 51.4. The official non-manufacturing PMI dropped to 54.0 from 55.0, touching the lowest level in almost a year, whereas economists had expected the index to stay unchanged.
NZD/USD traded at 0.6817 as of 12:06 GMT today, close to the opening level of 0.6822, after falling to the daily low of 0.6795. EUR/NZD jumped from 1.7148 to 1.7216. At the same time, NZD/JPY rallied from 75.70 to 76.03, bouncing from the daily low of 75.56.
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