(06 NOVEMBER 2017)DAILY MARKET BRIEF 2:NZD loses ground as inflation expectations slide

NZD/USD paired losses on Monday morning as 2-year inflation expectations eased to 2.02% in the fourth quarter from 2.09% in the previous one. The Kiwi lost another 0.35% against the greenback and stabilised at around $0.6680. After falling as much as 5% over the last four weeks, the Kiwi has been trading with a slight uptrend bias for the last five days. Accordingly, New Zealand rates adjusted to the downside with the 10-year yield dropping to 2.759%, while the 2-year eased to 1.937%.

Although inflation expectations have dropped, the inflation outlook improved substantially as the combined effects of a weaker Kiwi and a more expansionary fiscal policy stance from the new government.

On the technical side, NZD/USD was unable to break the 0.6818 support (low from May 11th) to the downside. However, the market is expecting further downside in NZD/USD as non-commercial short speculative positions reached 11.5% of total open-interest. On the downside, the next support stands at $0.6676 (low from May 2016), while on the upside a resistance lies at around $0.72 (high from October 16th).

By Arnaud Masset