- US Dollar Index extends FOMC-inspired rally.
- Factory orders rise more than expected in the U.S. in March.
- Building permits in New Zealand drop sharply.
The NZD/USD pair, which turned south earlier this week with the kiwi struggling to find demand following the disappointing labour market data, extended its slide for the third straight day and touched its lowest level in a week at 0.6608. As of writing, the pair was trading at 0.6614, losing 0.1% on a daily basis.
Today’s data from New Zealand showed that building permits in March declined by 6.9% on a monthly basis following February’s 1.7% increase and fell short of the market expectation of -1.6% to hurt the kiwi.
On the other hand, USD bulls took control of the currency’s price action on Wednesday after the FOMC Chairman Powell adopted an optimistic tone in yesterday’s press conference. The US Dollar Index, which slumped to its lowest level in more than two weeks at 97.15, staged a decisive rebound to close Wednesday in the positive territory and preserved its momentum.
The data published by the U.S. Census Burau on Thursday revealed that factory orders in March rose by 1.9% to surpass the analysts’ estimate of 1.5% and provided an additional boost to the greenback. The DXY rose all the way up to 97.83 earlier in the session and was last seen up 0.15% on the day at 97.77.
There won’t be any other macroeconomic data releases from New Zealand in the remainder of the week and markets will wait for the nonfarm payroll report from the U.S. Previewing the data, TD Securities analysts said that they were expecting the NFP to come in at 165K in March. “In particular, we expect a recovery in employment in the construction sector following a sharp decline in February that probably reflected adverse weather effects. We also look for an improvement in services employment to be led by job gains in the education and leisure sectors,” the report read.
Technical levels
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