New Zealand Dollar (NZD) upside bias continued into Wednesday against the US Dollar (USD) travelling to 0.5940 post the Fed statement but was beaten back down soon after to 0.5820 over the couple of hours that followed. Jerome Powell signalled a higher top for interest rates and isn’t worried about over tightening, his comments completely reversed the initial dovish stance leading to a sell off reversal in stocks, commodities and risk products including the kiwi. The Fed raised rates 75 points as predicted to 4.00% with Powell saying he would consider slowing the pace of rises at the December meeting but the pace of the increases shouldn’t be misread as a signal the Fed was backing away from hiking any time soon. US Non-Farm Payroll prints in the morning with expectations the number of newly employed people will jump higher as it has done over the past 6 months. Certainly, Powell is hoping this number is soft and a slowdown of sorts gets underway ultimately giving him some leeway with raising future interest rates.
The current interbank midrate is: NZDUSD 0.5767
The interbank range this week has been: NZDUSD 0.5739- 0.5940