NZD/USD finds support ahead of 0.68, stays in lower half of daily range

• Disappointing data from China weighs on NZD on Thursday.
• Bloomberg says there won’t be a meeting between Trump and Xi until late April.
• US Dollar Index stages modest recovery.

After posting gains in the last four trading days, the NZD/USD pair reversed its course on Thursday and erased a large part of this week’s advance. As of writing, the pair was trading at 0.6815, losing 0.6% on a daily basis.

In the early Asian session, the data from China showed that the annual industrial production growth eased to  5.3% in January from 5.7% in December and fell short of the market expectation of 5.5% to weigh on the NZD.

Later in the day, Bloomberg in a report claimed that the meeting between President Trump and President Xi was likely to be postponed to late April and further hurt the demand for currencies such as the AUD and the NZD. “Despite claims of progress in talks by both sides, a hoped-for summit at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort will now take place at the end of April if it happens at all,” Bloomberg said citing a source familiar with talks. The next catalyst for the NZD will be the Business NZ PMI and visitor arrivals data that are scheduled to be released at 21:30 GMT and 21:45 GMT, respectively.

On the other hand, the greenback is staying relatively strong against its rivals on Thursday despite a lack of positive fundamental drivers. At the moment, the DXY is up 0.28% on the day at 96.75.

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