NZD/USD drops to intraday low as China data disappoints antipodeans

• China’s retail sales and industrial production growth slipped beneath market expectations and prior while fixed asset investment rose beyond the prior.
• The US-China tension and the US data could entertain Kiwi traders for now.

NZD/USD printed fresh intra-day low surrounding 0.6565 after China’s April month data added worries for the antipodeans during the initial Asian session on Wednesday.

China’s retail sales (YoY) grew below 8.6% forecast and 8.7% prior to 7.2% whereas industrial production also disappointed commodity buyers with 5.4% growth versus 6.5% market consensus and 8.5% previous readout. Moving on, fixed asset investment rose 6.4% from 6.3% on year to date YoY format.

Even if the US President Donald Trump’s tweets tried assuring the global investors that Washington and Beijing are friends, news reports from China’s Global Times poured cold water on the previous optimism. The report signaled that China might refrain from the US energy exports in order to show its dislike for recent tariffs on Chinese products by the Trump administration.

Having witnessed China’s data-dump, Kiwi traders may now focus on the US retail sales, empire state manufacturing, and industrial production numbers while also taking care of macros concerning the US-China tariff-war.

While retail sales and empire state manufacturing numbers are less likely to entertain the greenback bulls, expected reversal of the US industrial production can help the US Dollar (USD) remain largely strong against its New Zealand counterpart.

Technical Analysis

The break of 0.6560 could further weaken the pair to slip beneath the current month low near 0.6525 whereas additional declines can aim at 0.6500 and October 2018 lows around 0.6425.

Alternatively, pair’s break of seven-week-old trend-line resistance at 0.6600 may challenge short-term buyers ahead of pleasing them with 0.6630, 0.6650 and 0.6685 resistances during the extra rise.