The New Zealand and Australian dollars fell sharply on Monday after weaker-than-expected Chinese data raised concerns about the global economic outlook, hitting risk assets from stocks to commodities and growth-leveraged currencies. The kiwi suffered the most, skidding more than one percent against the US dollar, yen and even the pound, as the market was overweight the currency after recent hefty gains.
It had its worst daily loss versus a trade-weighted basket since March 2012, falling as far as 77.96 from a post-float high of 78.73. The kiwi crumbled as far as $0.8479, down a cent from its intraday high and pulling further away from $0.8676 hit last week. It was last at $0.8506. The Aussie also had a bad day, falling nearly a cent to $1.0424, well below a three-month high of $1.0583 set last week. Having easily broken $1.0438, a key retracement level, next support was seen near $1.0400. It is down 0.7 percent on the day.