NZ dollar little changed as global shares defy worsening Covid news

The kiwi was trading at 65.72 US cents at 5pm. Photo / 123RF

The New Zealand dollar was little changed as traders awaited further trend-setting information and as rising share markets were offset by Florida reporting a US record for new Covid infections.

The kiwi was trading at 65.72 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 65.79 cents in New York on Friday. The trade-weighted index was at 72.36 from 72.28.

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In the late afternoon in NZ, the Nikkei 225 Index was up 1.9 per cent, the Hang Seng Index up 0.9 per cent and the Shanghai Composite Index up 1.3 per cent. The S&P 500 Index futures were up 0.5 per cent.

Florida reported 15,300 new infections on Sunday, exceeding New York State's worst ever day of 11,611 on April 15 – New York reported its first 24-hour period of no deaths from the disease for the first time in nearly four months.

Walt Disney World in the Florida city of Orlando reopened on Saturday.

Mike Shirley, a dealer at Kiwibank, said the local bird traded in a narrow range between 65.70 US cents and 65.80 cents all day "with every so mild fleeting fluctuations outside of that."

But the greenback has been losing ground. "While the kiwi has done not very much at all, other currencies have seen a bit of appreciation against the US dollar." That included the Australian dollar, the British pound and the Japanese yen.

The market is not reacting to the worsening coronavirus crisis.

"The news can be terrible and everyone focuses on it and it's risk-off, or it can be terrible and everyone focuses their attention elsewhere" as they appear to be doing today.

The economic calendar is quiet through the first part of the week but Thursday will be data heavy with NZ June quarter inflation, Australia's unemployment figures and China's gross domestic product numbers all released during the local trading day.

ANZ is expecting the consumers price index to have fallen 0.6 per cent in the June quarter for an annual inflation rate of 1.4 per cent while ASB is expecting a 0.4 per cent quarterly decline for an annual print of 1.5 per cent.

That will be followed overnight by the European Central Bank's monetary policy committee meeting and US retail sales data.

The market is expecting the ECB to leave its monetary policy settings unchanged.

The New Zealand dollar was trading at 94.26 Australian cents from 94.42 cents at 5pm on Friday, at 51.94 British pence from 52.04 pence, at 58.05 euro cents from 58.10 cents, at 70.23 yen from 70.05 yen and at 4.5993 Chinese yuan from 4.5871 yuan.

The bid price on the two-year swap was at 0.1750 per cent from 0.1950 per cent, while the 10-year swap was at 0.7500 per cent from 0.7225 per cent on Friday.