The Australian and New Zealand dollars crept higher on Monday amid hopes progress might be made at the latest Greek debt talks, with a resulting boost to risk appetite globally. The Aussie inched ahead to $0.7780, from an early $0.7766 and back toward resistance at $0.7815. The kiwi crawled to $0.6912, but was still only just above a five-year low of $0.6880 hit last week.
In Greece, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made a new offer on a reforms package to foreign creditors on Sunday, ahead of meetings by EU ministers and the European Central Bank. The chief-of-staff to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called the latest proposal from Greece to resolve its debt crisis a "good basis for progress" in talks among euro zone leaders on Monday.
Any concrete progress would tend to benefit the euro, but also riskier currencies such as the Aussie and kiwi. New Zealand's currency could do with a break having slid 10 percent since May as the country's central bank cut interest rates and left the door wide open to further moves. Tim Kelleher, head of institutional FX sales at ASB bank in Auckland, expected it to wallow around $0.6700 and $0.7000 in the coming days. "The kiwi has come a long way in a pretty short period of time, and the US dollar is coming under pressure ... It's more of a buy around these levels than a sell," said Kelleher.
Long-term technical support was seen around $0.6869, the 50 percent retracement of the kiwi's 2009-2014 rally. The kiwi suffered a fourth week of losses against its Australian peer, which jumped to its the highest in over seven months at NZ$1.1285 The Aussie has made the most of the kiwi's troubles, climbing over 2 percent last week to seven-month highs around NZ$1.1285.
While the Reserve Bank of Australia cut its rates in May it is widely expected to hold steady for the next few months. In contrast, markets are wagering heavily that there will be another easing in New Zealand in July. In debt markets, New Zealand government bonds were little changed on Monday. Australian three-year government bond futures edged down 3 ticks to 98.070, while the 10-year contract slipped 2 ticks to 97.0550.
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