NZD/USD surges to fresh weekly high despite China’s sluggish PMI numbers
- NZD/USD follows a recent run of Antipodeans while rising to the highest in a week.
- Upbeat prints of New Zealand Building Permits, Westpac’s call of delayed rate cut weigh over China PMI, ANZ Business Confidence data.
- Another favor to China from the US side shrugs off uncertainty surrounding the next round of trade talks between them.
Although China’s key activity numbers refrain from recovering in their latest release, NZD/USD keeps the post-Fed strength while rising to highest in a week to 0.6422 during Thursday’s Asian session.
China’s October month NBS Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) declined below 49.8 expected and earlier to 49.3 while Non-Manufacturing PMI slipped to 52.8 from 53.9 marker consensus.
Even so, the prices seem to cheer the early day hike in September month Building Permits, to 7.2% from 0.8% prior while benefiting from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s (ANZ) monthly Business Confidence that recovered to -42.4 from -54.1 expected.
Adding to the pair’s strength could be Westpac’s forecast about the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s (RBNZ) next rate move as their analysts pushed back expectations of a rate cut in November to February month.
On Wednesday, the United States (US) Federal Reserve’s (Fed) third consecutive rate cut of 25 basis points (bps) and worries over inflation took over the central bank’s Chairman Jerome Powell’s claim turning down further rate cuts, which in turn offered noticeable strength to the Antipodeans.
On the trade front, the US gave another favor to China while allowing it to renew sanction waivers concerning Iran. The same seems to increase the odds of a successful trade deal between the US and China even if there is uncertainty around the next round of talks.
While no major data is up for publishing during the Asian session, except monetary policy meeting by the Bank of Japan (BOJ), investors could keep following trade headlines for fresh impulse.
Technical Analysis
Monthly high of 0.6437 and September month top near 0.6455 is again flashing on buyers’ radar unless prices stay beyond 21/50-day Simple Moving Averages (SMA), around 0.6340/45 now.