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9 Feb 2016
Weaker USD helping prop up NZD/USD - Westpac
Imre Speizer, Senior Market Strategist at Westpac, suggests that the weaker US dollar is helping prop up NZD/USD, counteracting the forces of falling commodity prices.
Key Quotes
“Also helping, and related to the weaker US dollar, is the spread between NZ and US interest rates which has risen this year. All this should keep NZD/USD inside a 0.6550-0.6800 range during the week ahead.
The NZ event calendar takes a breath this week and sticks to second-tier data. Most interesting for us will be the Jan housing market updates from QV and REINZ (Tue and Wed), anecdotes suggesting the LVR-induced correction in Auckland has been shallow and brief. If the data shows renewed strength, the chances of a March RBNZ cut (already slim) would diminish further. Also out are electronic retail spending (Tue), manufacturing PMI (Thu) and food prices (Fri).
3 months: We expect NZD/USD to be lower by mid-2016, targeting 0.62. Our main argument is that the Fed should raise US interest rates further this year but markets have priced little in. We expect US data to soon start surprising positively, pushing US interest rates higher. In contrast, the RBNZ should ease twice this year, but markets have priced in only once.
1 year: Our 1 year ahead forecast is 0.61, based partly on the OCR being cut by another 50bp to 2.0% and the Fed rate to rise from 0.375% to 1.125% this year.”
Key Quotes
“Also helping, and related to the weaker US dollar, is the spread between NZ and US interest rates which has risen this year. All this should keep NZD/USD inside a 0.6550-0.6800 range during the week ahead.
The NZ event calendar takes a breath this week and sticks to second-tier data. Most interesting for us will be the Jan housing market updates from QV and REINZ (Tue and Wed), anecdotes suggesting the LVR-induced correction in Auckland has been shallow and brief. If the data shows renewed strength, the chances of a March RBNZ cut (already slim) would diminish further. Also out are electronic retail spending (Tue), manufacturing PMI (Thu) and food prices (Fri).
3 months: We expect NZD/USD to be lower by mid-2016, targeting 0.62. Our main argument is that the Fed should raise US interest rates further this year but markets have priced little in. We expect US data to soon start surprising positively, pushing US interest rates higher. In contrast, the RBNZ should ease twice this year, but markets have priced in only once.
1 year: Our 1 year ahead forecast is 0.61, based partly on the OCR being cut by another 50bp to 2.0% and the Fed rate to rise from 0.375% to 1.125% this year.”