XE Morning Update - 22/03/21

The AUDUSD opens at 0.7713 and the NZDUSD opens at 0.7143

Well the weekend went by without any fireworks, and today seems on track to follow suit. US 10 year yields are still creeping up, now at 1.72% and that has the market slightly on edge. The Fed does appear pretty unwilling to try to limit the rise, with the Feds' Tom Barkin reiterating that the rise is because of the economic recovery, but also that the Fed took a bunch of extraordinary measures last year, and it is time to wind some of them down. In any other language this would be called a taper, and if anyone generally hints at threating to think about mentioning a taper the market falls apart, so the lack of movement so far is interesting.

To summarise, you have a US expected to grow at 6%, with a Central bank that is not looking to get in front of rising rates, and may even be loosely thinking about tapering. Compare this to Australia, which has a respectable, but slower 3.5% growth forecast, and New Zealand which had negative 1% growth, they are worried about yields getting too high, and are not thinking of tightening rates at all. This does not seem to bode well for the AUD or NZD.


Global equity markets are mixed: Dow -0.7%, S&P 500 -0.1%, FTSE -1.1%, DAX -1.1%, CAC -1.1%, Nikkei -1.4%, Shanghai -1.7%.

Gold prices are up 0.6%, currently trading at $1,745 an ounce. WTI Crude Oil prices are indicated up 3.6% trading at $61.4 a barrel.

NZDUSD 0.7143 -0.3%
NZDEUR 0.6013 0.0%
NZDGBP 0.5152 0.2%
NZDJPY 77.60 -0.5%
NZDAUD 0.9264 0.4%
NZDCAD 0.8947 -0.2%
GBPNZD 1.9375 -0.4%

AUDUSD 0.7713 -0.6%
AUDEUR 0.6492 -0.3%
AUDGBP 0.5571 0.0%
AUDJPY 83.75 -0.9%
AUDNZD 1.0796 -0.3%
GBPAUD 1.7953 0.0%