The New Zealand dollar traded about flat against the majority of most-traded currencies today after falling earlier during the trading session. Domestic macroeconomic data released on Thursday was relatively positive but the market sentiment was unfavorable to riskier currencies.
The ANZ Business Confidence climbed to -26.4 in November from -42.4 in October. Agriculture and retail sectors demonstrated the biggest improvement. The report commented on the rise of the confidence index:
While still not a great level, this is the highest read this year.
Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions between the United States and China heated up after US President Donald Trump signed legislation that officially supports Hong-Kong protesters. China condemned the move as an intervention in its internal affairs. The New Zealand dollar, being considered a commodity currency and therefore more susceptible to economic and geopolitical risks tends to perform poorly in a risk-averse environment. Negative news regarding China is especially bad to the currency as the Asian nation is the biggest trading partner of New Zealand.
Next week will extremely light in terms of macroeconomic releases in New Zealand. Therefore, the New Zealand currency will be driven mostly by global factors and market sentiment. News about changes in the Sino-US relations will likely affect the currency the most.
NZD/USD traded at 0.6423 as of 13:08 GMT today after opening at 0.6418 and falling to the session low of 0.6402. EUR/NZD was about flat at 1.7128 after rallying to the high of 1.7185 during the session. NZD/JPY was little changed at 70.31 following the earlier decline to the daily low of 70.01.
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