NZD/USD: Buyers lack fresh directives to again challenge 0.6920 resistance

• Recovery underway after upbeat data helped the USD to take better advantage of other currencies’ declines on Thursday.
• Lack of headline data/events gives troubles to traders.

NZD/USD is mildly bid around 0.6880 during the early Asian session on Friday. The New Zealand Dollar (NZD) is struggling to recover yesterday’s heavy losses and revisit nine-month-old resistance-line against the US Dollar (USD) amid few data/events on hand.

The NZD/USD pair fall short of holding early-Thursday gains earned through New Zealand GDP as traders concentrated more on the greenback’s strength backed by improvement in second-tier data from the US. Concerns were also mounted that Brexit uncertainty is driving funds off the Euro and the British Pound (GBP) whereas antipodeans had to bear the burden of doubts surrounding the US-China trade deal.

The US Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey revealed the upbeat figure of 13.7 versus 4.5 forecast and -4.1 prior for the current month while initial jobless claims for the week ended on March 15 slid beneath 225K forecast and 230K revised prior to 221K.

Investors have little data/events on hand for publish during early Friday whereas March month preliminary readings of the US Markit purchasing manager index (PMI) and existing home sales for February can offer fresh directives through the end.

The US Markit manufacturing PMI may improve to 53.6 from 53.0 but no change is expected to take place in services PMI figure of 56.0 while composite PMI could soften to 55.2 from 55.5. Existing home sales might recover to 5.10M versus 4.94M.

NZD/USD Technical Analysis

In spite of reversing from nine-month-old descending trend-line stretched since September 2018, the NZD/USD pair is still above 0.6860 figure comprising the support-line (previously resistance) connecting highs marked since February. Should the pair clears 0.6920 resistance, it can opt for 0.6970 and 0.7000 levels to the north.

On the contrary, price decline under 0.6860 may take rest at 0.6845 immediate support-line whereas 0.6825, 0.6800 and 0.6780 can entertain sellers afterward.