NZ dollar rises to 18-month high vs euro

Friday 09 December 2016 09:06 AM

NZ dollar rises to 18-month high vs euro after ECB extends asset purchases

By Jonathan Underhill

Dec. 9 (BusinessDesk) - The New Zealand dollar rose to an 18-month high against a broadly weaker euro after the European Central Bank extended its asset purchase programme by nine months and signalled it wasn't about to exit the market.

The kiwi dollar traded at 67.57 euro cents as at 8am in Wellington and earlier touched 67.71 cents, the highest since May 2015. The local currency fell to 71.69 US cents from 72.10 cents yesterday as the ECB's decision also helped lift the greenback.

ECB President Mario Draghi surprised financial markets by extending the bank's bond-buying programme longer than expected to the end of 2017, while trimming the overall target to 60 billion euros a month from 80 billion euros starting April. Draghi said the changes didn't signal a winding down of a quantitative easing programme that has seen the ECB spend more than 1.4 trillion euros buying bonds. "There is no question about tapering," Draghi said.

"Overnight the USD is somewhat firmer across the board, its performance against the EUR most telling for markets as traders respond to the ECB’s policy update," said Doug Steel, senior economist at Bank of New Zealand.

The kiwi dollar touched a month-high of 72.22 US cents yesterday after Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler gave an upbeat account of New Zealand's economic outlook and said the nation was "probably past the low point for CPI inflation". That was followed by the government's Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU), which projected economic growth averaging 3 percent a year for the next five years, swelling the tax take and allowing the government to increase spending on infrastructure such as Auckland's City Rail Link.

"The rhetoric in the (Wheeler) speech was fairly upbeat with comments noting a positive growth outlook. To us, it was mildly hawkish," said Steel, who anticipates the RBNZ will begin hiking interest rates in the first half of 2018.

The kiwi was little changed at 96.16 Australian cents, having climbed to a month high of 96.36 cents yesterday, as the Treasury's stronger economic growth forecasts and Wheeler's upbeat comments contrasted with views of the Australian economy, which shrank a greater-than-expected 0.5 percent in the third quarter.

The trade-weighted index was at 78.78 from 78.86 yesterday. The kiwi dollar was little changed at 57.01 British pence, fell to 4.9316 yuan from 4.9586 yuan and traded at 81.80 yen from 81.77 yen.

(BusinessDesk)

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