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Kiwi dollar may decline

Kiwi may trade between 65.45 US cents and 69.20 cents this week.

Tina Morrison
Mon, 02 Nov 2015

The New Zealand dollar may decline this week, weighed down by dovish sentiment from the Reserve Bank of Australia, a decline in dairy auction prices and low US jobs growth.

The kiwi may trade between 65.45USc cents and 69.20USc this week, according to a BusinessDesk survey of nine currency analysts. Five picked the kiwi to fall, two say it may gain and two expect it to remain relatively unchanged. It recently traded at 67.54USc.

Currency traders have plenty of data to mull over this week as they weigh the outlook for global growth and interest rates. For New Zealand, data is due on employment, housing, commodities, vehicle sales and dairy prices while in the US the focus will be on Friday's nonfarm payrolls report, an important gauge for the Federal Reserve, which is expected to show employers in the US added fewer than 200,000 workers for a third month in October.

"I expect the data on Friday to still reinforce the declining jobs numbers and that certainly will weigh on sentiment," said CMC Markets NZ sales trader Sheldon Slabbert. "People may be paring back on some of their risk exposure and that sort of neutral to negative sentiment normally weighs on the kiwi."

Traders are data focused after both the Fed and the Reserve Bank  last week stressed they were monitoring upcoming data releases as they pondered the future interest rate track.

In New Zealand this week, Quotable Value is scheduled to release monthly housing market data tomorrow, and Auckland real estate agency Barfoot & Thompson is also likely to publish its statistics on the city's housing market.

ANZ Bank is due to publish its monthly commodity price index tomorrow ahead of the overnight GlobalDairyTrade auction where futures market pricing is predicting a decline in the price of New Zealand's largest commodity export.

The National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research today published its latest Seasonal Climate Outlook, which said El Nino is certain to continue over the next three months. The current weather pattern is slightly weaker than the 1997/98 El Nino, when farmers suffered through severe drought in the strongest such weather pattern since 1950 but is expected to intensify further and peak in the summer months, it said.

The latest data on monthly vehicle sales is expected early in the week and will probably indicate whether annual sales this year are set to beat 2014's record.

On Wednesday, labour market statistics are expected to show record migration is boosting the participation rate, and keeping a lid on wage growth. Meanwhile, more modest employment growth is expected to push the unemployment rate above 6%.

In Australia this week, the RBA is expected to keep interest rates on hold tomorrow with more detail on its view of the economy released in its Statement on Monetary Policy published on Friday. RBA governor Glenn Stevens will give a speech at the Melbourne Institute 2015 Economic and Social Outlook Conference on Thursday. Australia also has trade and retail data scheduled for release on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, the Bank of England is expected to keep its policy unchanged at its meeting on Thursday. The UK has industrial production and trade data scheduled for release on Friday.

In the eurozone, economic data slated for release this week include eurozone manufacturing, due today; eurozone services performance manufacturing index and producer price inflation, due Wednesday; German factory orders, eurozone retail sales, as well as European Commission economic forecasts, due Thursday; and German industrial product, due Friday.

As well as the latest employment numbers in the US, there's the ISM's October manufacturing and October construction spending, due today; US September factory orders and October vehicle sales, due Tuesday; September trade and the ISM's services index for October and ADP private payrolls for October, due Wednesday, as well as weekly jobless claims, due Thursday.

A private measure of Chinese manufacturing activity is scheduled for release today, after the official measure released at the weekend missed expectations. This coming weekend, China publishes data on its foreign reserves and trade.

(BusinessDesk)

Tina Morrison
Mon, 02 Nov 2015
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Kiwi dollar may decline
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