Kiwi dollar holds steady for the week

The New Zealand dollar is steady on the week after ongoing worries about the ChinaUS trade stoush were offset by news reports that the US Federal Reserve may signal a wait-and-see approach regarding rate hikes in 2019.

The kiwi traded at US68.83c versus US68.71c yesterday and US68.62c on Thursday. It was at US68.78c last Friday in New York. The trade-weighted index was at

74.99 from 74.87.

The kiwi remained under pressure after the arrest of Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada for extradition to the United States reignited fears over the US-China relationship.

However, any fall was tempered after a Wall Street Journal report that said Federal Reserve officials are considering whether to signal a wait-and-see approach after a likely interest-rate increase at their meeting this month, said Tim Kelleher, head of institutional foreign exchange sales at ASB Bank.

While any trade-related headlines are likely to push currencies around, Kelleher said overnight US jobs data would be closely watched. Domestically the next key piece of data is the gross domestic product on December 20.

The kiwi traded at A95.15c from A95.04c on Thursday. Jason Wong, senior markets strategist for BNZ, said he thinks the kiwi will hold up against the Aussie for longer. “Our updated forecasts have 0.95-0.96 being the new mid-point of a trading range that might well now be 0.93-0.98 through to the middle of next year.”

The kiwi traded at 77.68 yen from 77.35 yen and increased to 4.7291 Chinese yuan from 4.7215 yuan. It was at 60.51 euro cents from 60.51 cents on Thursday and fell to

53.89 British pence from 53.93 pence. New Zealand’s two-year swap rate was unchanged at 2.04 per cent; the 10-year swaps eased 2 basis point to 2.77 per cent.