14 Mar 2016
NZD/USD to be lower by mid-2016 - Westpac
Imre Speizer, Research Analyst at Westpac, notes that last week's RBNZ rate cut was a major factor in significantly weakening the NZD against the AUD while the NZD/USD, on the other hand, is being propped up by global factors.
Key Quotes
“NZD/USD is stuck around 0.6700 in the near term. The RBNZ’s and ECB’s easings last week only briefly dented the NZD, with a soft US dollar and improved global risk sentiment preventing a sustained fall. The FOMC this week will be important for USD direction.
The NZ calendar this week should remain interesting for markets. The highlight will be the Q4 GDP report (Wed). We expect a quarterly rate of 0.7%, or 2.1% yoy - decent in a global context. Also worth watching will be the Q4 current account on Tue and March consumer confidence on Thu, the latter expected to show another decline as the dairy sector’s woes reverberate. There’s also a GDT dairy auction.
3 months: We expect NZD/USD to be lower by mid-2016, due to a combination of a lower OCR and a higher US interest rates. In addition, NZ commodity prices are expected to remain soft. However, there is a risk that the recent surge in global risk sentiment, manifested by higher equity and commodity prices could persist and offset the negative NZ interest rate argument. We target the Jan low of 0.64.
1 year: Our macro-economic based forecast for one-year ahead is 0.62, based mainly on the OCR being cut by another 50bp to 2.0% and the Fed rate to rise further from 0.375% this year.”
Key Quotes
“NZD/USD is stuck around 0.6700 in the near term. The RBNZ’s and ECB’s easings last week only briefly dented the NZD, with a soft US dollar and improved global risk sentiment preventing a sustained fall. The FOMC this week will be important for USD direction.
The NZ calendar this week should remain interesting for markets. The highlight will be the Q4 GDP report (Wed). We expect a quarterly rate of 0.7%, or 2.1% yoy - decent in a global context. Also worth watching will be the Q4 current account on Tue and March consumer confidence on Thu, the latter expected to show another decline as the dairy sector’s woes reverberate. There’s also a GDT dairy auction.
3 months: We expect NZD/USD to be lower by mid-2016, due to a combination of a lower OCR and a higher US interest rates. In addition, NZ commodity prices are expected to remain soft. However, there is a risk that the recent surge in global risk sentiment, manifested by higher equity and commodity prices could persist and offset the negative NZ interest rate argument. We target the Jan low of 0.64.
1 year: Our macro-economic based forecast for one-year ahead is 0.62, based mainly on the OCR being cut by another 50bp to 2.0% and the Fed rate to rise further from 0.375% this year.”