"Some market participants would have focused on the negatives and not really thought too much about the positives, but if you thought about all of the positives and negatives together you would have come to the conclusion that they roughly cancel each other out and that there should not be too much change to track."
"Its not just about milk, yes milk prices have fallen, but if you'd looked at it a bit more closely you would have seen the Reserve Bank itself did forecast a fall in the milk price," he said.
Across the Tasman, Australian unemployment figures remained steady at 5.8 percent, a "slightly disappointing" result which showed a pick-up in the economy "but at a very sluggish pace", Speizer said. The kiwi jumped over a cent to 92.22 Australian cents, from 91.12 cents at 8 am and 91.08 cents yesterday.
"Reserve Bank of Australia hikes are quite a distant prospect still, whereas we are firmly on track to go up a long way," said Speizer.
Deputy RBNZ governor Grant Spencer addressed the issue of Australian interest rates during questioning today at Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee from Labour MP Trevor Mallard.
"They are on hold. They got up to 3.5 percent at their peak (during the mining boom that has now ended), and came down to 2.5 percent. Nobody's expecting much action in Australia this year," Spencer told the committee earlier today.
The kiwi touched a 13 month high of 63.87 euro cents at 5pm from 63.22 cents at 8am, ahead of a report on Eurozone industrial production. The local currency rose to 51.49 British pence from 50.94 pence this morning, recovering from an overnight drop after a report showed UK employment fell to its lowest in more than five years.
The New Zealand dollar drifted to 88.28 yen from 87.26 yen at 8am on speculation the Bank of Japan will refrain from expanding stimulus at its meeting tomorrow.
