NZD/USD Outlook – August 3-7 2009

The New Zealand dollar crawled upwards in the last week, but didn’t make big moves. This week’s three major events + Non-Farm Payrolls, could set a new direction for the slow-moving kiwi. Here’s an outlook for this week’s important releases in New Zealand, and a graphical technical analysis of NZD/USD.

1. Labor Cost Index:  Published on Monday at 22:45 GMT, quite early in the week. Wages are usually the highest expense in a company’s balance sheet. The cost rises in each quarter. Last time it disappointed and rose by only 0.5%. This time, expectations match last month’s result – 0.5%.
2. Employment Change: Both employment figures are published at the same time, Wednesday at 22:45 GMT. After 3 quarters of surprising stability, this figure made the expected fall last quarter, and fell by 1.1%. The recession eventually impacted the job market. There is only small hope this time, with an expected drop of 0.6%.
3. Unemployment Rate: Contrary to the volatility of the employment change figure, the unemployment rate has risen steadily every quarter. This time, a big jump is predicted: from 5% to 5.6%. These bad predictions could help the kiwi in case the figure surprises. Just remember that a surprise here could be erased by a disappointment in the figure above.

NZD/USD will be highly affected by lots of American figures, with the Non-Farm Payrolls having the strongest impact on all currency pairs.

NZD/USD Technical Analysis

The kiwi advanced in the past week to the peaks that it reached in the week before, closing at 0.6612. Volatility wasn’t too strong, and basic technical levels haven’t changed since last week’s NZD/USD outlook. The forex graph above shows the important lines.

Upwards, 0.6780 is a resistance line, after serving as a strong support line for two periods in 2007. Further north, 0.6950 is another resistance line. It was the peak during September 2008.

Down from here are areas that were recently visited: 0.65 is a support line that was taken not long ago. Below, 0.6120 used to be a resistance line a few months ago, and now offers support.

Further reading:

• For a broad view of this week’s events, check out the  Forex Weekly Outlook.
• For a coverage of USD/CAD, read the  Canadian Dollar Outlook.
• For GBP/USD, here’s the British Pound Outlook.
• For the Aussie, check out the AUD/USD Outlook.