On Wednesday, the New Zealand dollar held weaker in Asia after a wider than expected current account deficit with traders increasingly focused on major bank board gatherings next week in America and Japan.
The New Zealand second quarter current account was at a deficit of about NZ$945 million quarter-on-quarter, unlike NZ$410 million observed, as well as a NZ$7.38 billion gap year-on-year compared to the expected NZ$6.74 billion. The given outcome hit 2.90% of GDP against 2.70% observed. The deficit turned to be wider than expected because of a dip in services surplus with New Zealanders traveling overseas shelling out a record NZ$1.4 billion.
The currency pair NZD/USD was worth 0.7248, tumbling 0.06%. Another pair AUD/USD surged 0.11%, trading at 0.7473, while USD/JPY fell, hitting 102.79.
Meanwhile, in Australia, the Westpac consumer sentiment index for September edged up 0.3%, quite below the 1.0% soar observed.
In Japan, speculation on further BOJ easing was powered on Wednesday by an article in the Nikkei business daily, which reported that the country’s major financial institution might widen its negative interest rate policy as its asset buying target, including government debt, of ¥80 trillion reaching saturation point.
