Risk Continued to Sell Off Heading into Weekend

The AUDUSD opens at 0.6413 and the NZDUSD opens at 0.6060 this morning.

Risk continued to sell off on Friday. There have been some big companies releasing earnings, with Amazon reporting increasing costs helping lead to the sell off. While this may not sound like a big deal, Amazon makes up 10% of the Nasdaq index, and the top 5 companies make up 40%. Therefore if one of the large companies has a bad miss, you can get a broader sell off, and a risk off mood on the back of it.  

New Zealanders enjoying their Level 3 takeaways will find out next Monday if restrictions are lifted further, and if the country moves down to Level 2. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hinted this morning that the decision will be on Monday, but the move would be similar to what they had done previously, i.e. Wednesday midnight before being enacted. If so, Level 2 is looking pretty close to being back to normal for a large amount of the New Zealand economy, and hence should be good for the NZD.

Looking ahead for the week, we have the Reserve Bank if Australia cash rate decision is tomorrow, and we have New Zealand Employment data on Wednesday. The RBA have been pretty clear they won’t go negative with respect to rates, so unless that changes, it is expected to be a little bit of a non-event.  

Global equity markets are off, Dow -2.6% S&P 500  -2.8%, FTSE -2.3%, DAX -2.2%, CAC -2.1%, Nikkei -2.8%, Shanghai +1.3%.

Gold prices are up 0.8% to USD$1,699 an ounce. WTI Crude Oil prices are higher, up 3.2% to $19.7 a barrel.

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Australia Morning Update | New Zealand Morning Update