- NZD/USD flirts with 0.6800 on early Monday.
- Friday’s USD weakness kept luring buyers while sellers gave importance to the latest data.
- Monthly reading of the US retail sales becomes key data to look forward.
NZD/USD trades near 0.6800 during early Asian hours on Monday. The offers softer start to the week as mixed data from China supersede buyers weighing Friday’s US Dollar weakness. The US retail sales control group for January month will be crucial for traders to watch during late-Monday.
The US Dollar (USD) dropped across the board on Friday as headline nonfarm payrolls (NFP) registered a big miss from the 180K forecast to 20K during February. The NZD/USD pair gained nearly 50 pips on that day to 0.6800 by the end of the week.
During Saturday, China released February month inflation numbers. The frontline consumer price index (CPI) matched expectations of 1.5% by declining from 1.7% prior on yearly basis but grew past 0.7% forecast for a monthly reading to 1.0% versus 0.5% earlier.
At the week-start, Statistics New Zealand reported monthly electronic card retail sales numbers for February. The reading rose 0.9% against 1.8% prior on MoM while remaining little changed at 3.4% compared to 3.5% previous on a yearly basis.
Looking forward, The US retail sales figure will have a high importance on the traders’ radar. The retail sales control group is likely to have 0.6% growth rate during January against -1.7% prior whereas the retail sales (MoM) bears the expectations of +0.1% versus -1.2% earlier contraction. Also, retail sales ex-autos may register +0.3% gain on a monthly basis compared to -1.8% previous decline.
NZD/USD Technical Analysis
The NZD/USD pair requires a successful break of 0.6810 in order to aim for 0.6830 and 0.6870.
Should the pair declines below 200-day simple moving average (SMA) level around 0.6750, 0.6720 and 0.6720 can become seller’s favorites.
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