S&P 500 — US Large Cap Index
FTSE 100 — UK Blue Chips
Euro Stoxx 50 — Eurozone Leaders
DAX 40 — German Equities
CAC 40 — French Market Index
Nikkei 225 — Japan Benchmark
Hang Seng — Hong Kong Index
Shanghai Composite — China Mainland
ASX 200 — Australian Market
TSX Composite — Canada Index
Nifty 50 — India Large Cap
STI Index — Singapore Market
KOSPI — South Korea Index
Bovespa — Brazil Equities
JSE Top 40 — South Africa Index
IPC Index — Mexico Market- NZD/USD lacks any firm intraday direction amid a combination of diverging forces.
- A positive risk tone supports the Kiwi, though a modest USD uptick caps the major.
- Mixed Chinese PMIs do little to provide any meaningful impetus to spot prices.
The NZD/USD pair struggles to gain any meaningful traction during the Asian session on Wednesday and languishes near the lower end of a nearly two-week-old trading range. Spot prices hold steady around the 0.5930 region and move little following the release of Chinese PMIs.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported that China’s official Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) contracted to 49 in April, compared to 50.5 in the previous month and 49.9 expected. Moreover, the NBS Non-Manufacturing PMI eased more than expected, to 50.4 in the current month from 50.8 in March. However, China’s Caixin Manufacturing PMI fell from 51.2 to 50.4 in April, beating the market forecast of 49.9. The data fails to provide any meaningful impetus to antipodean currencies, including the Kiwi, amid mixed signals about US-China trade talks.
However, a positive risk tone – bolstered by the potential for a de-escalation of trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies and progress on trade negotiations – acts as a tailwind for the perceived riskier New Zealand Dollar (NZD). That said, a modest US Dollar (USD) strength holds back traders from placing fresh bullish bets around the NZD/USD pair. Meanwhile, the range-bound price action witnessed over the past two weeks or so warrants some caution before positioning for firm near-term direction ahead of this week’s key US macro releases.
Wednesday’s US economic docket features the ADP report on private-sector employment, the Advance Q1 GDP print, and the Personal Consumption and Expenditure (PCE) Price Index. The focus will then shift to the closely-watched US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) on Friday, which may provide insight into the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) policy outlook. This, in turn, will play a crucial role in influencing the near-term USD price dynamics and provide some meaningful impetus to the NZD/USD pair.
