The New Zealand dollar hovered near two-month lows on Friday and was on track for its worst weekly performance since end-April, while its Australian counterpart had another lacklustre week. The New Zealand dollar stood at $0.7209, not far from the previous session's $0.7192, which was the lowest level since June 22. The currency is poised to fall more than 2 percent this week for its fourth consecutive week of losses. The Australian dollar was steady at $0.7900, spending all of this week between $0.7951 and $0.7882.
The Aussie has dipped 0.3 percent this week, and has eased 1.3 percent this month after solid gains in June and July. New Zealand government bonds gained, sending yields 5 basis points lower. Australian government bond futures slipped, with the three-year bond contract down 2 ticks at 98.010. The 10-year contract was off 1 tick to 97.3600.
Traders are now looking for any monetary policy clues from an annual gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi were set to speak later in the day. "Our view is that policy changing speeches are not delivered outside of scheduled central bank policy meetings, so the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium is likely to disappoint market participants that expect game changing speeches to be delivered," said Kristina Clifton, economist at Commonwealth Bank.
Comments
Comments are closed.