Kiwi falls as North Korea tensions sap risk appetite
The yen gains as a 'safe haven.'
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Hawke’s Bay
The New Zealand dollar fell as the war of words between the US and North Korea sapped risk appetite and stoked so-called safe-haven currencies such as the yen.
The kiwi fell to 72.80 US cents as at 8:30am in Wellington from 73.09 cents late yesterday. The kiwi was trading at 79.44 yen from 80.44 yen.
North Korea has said it plans to fire missiles beyond Japan to the waters around the US territory of Guam in what may be retaliation for US President Donald Trump's off-the-cuff threat that the renegade state would face American "fire and fury". There was no lasting impact from the Reserve Bank's statement yesterday, which kept its projections broadly unchanged.
"The 'risk off' mood continues to dominate markets, with equities declining, US Treasury bond yields falling, and JPY and gold appreciating," said David Croy, senior rates strategist at ANZ Bank New Zealand.
In New Zealand today, traders will be watching for the July manufacturing PMI report and food prices for July but globally, the big event will be US inflation for July, which is expected to have picked up to 0.2 percent from zero the previous month.
Helping sharpen the focus on the US consumer price index figures, New York Federal Reserve President Bill Dudley said he expects inflation to pick up in coming months. The market is currently putting odds of 40 percent on the Fed hiking US interest rates for the third time this year, Croy said.
The trade-weighted index fell to 76.67 from 77.11 yesterday.
The kiwi fell to 4.8376 yuan from 4.8758 yuan, declined to 61.77 euro cents from 62.28 cents and dropped to 56.05 British pence from 56.26 pence. The kiwi fell to 92.33 Australian cents from 92.77 cents.
(BusinessDesk)
Jonathan Underhill
Fri, 11 Aug 2017
Fri, 11 Aug 2017
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Kiwi falls as North Korea tensions sap risk appetite
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