The New Zealand Dollar (NZD) made it through to 0.6800 last night the highest level since early February but was unable to hold here falling back against the US Dollar (USD) to 0.6300 this morning as equity prices closed lower. The odds of the Federal Reserve hiking their interest rate now is basically nil which has pushed up the greenback. US CPI for April showed 4.9% year on year pretty much creating a pause to rates a sure thing. This marks the lowest inflation since April 2021 printing below expectation of 5.0%. With forecasting of around 70 points of cuts to take place this year, this may be too much based on a cooling labour market. Also of consideration is the return of the Chinese market post Covid and the upturn of commodity prices which could send equity markets souring. This in turn means that interest rates would stay higher for longer. This would also support the greenback. Next week’s NZ annual “Wellbeing” Budget should move the kiwi.
The current interbank midrate is: NZDUSD 0.6295
The interbank range this week has been: NZDUSD 0.6288- 0.6383