The ANZ business confidence index released last week muted the NZD/USD trend, keeping it in a narrow range sideways at the end of the week. The reading came in 23, surpassing the prior tick of 14.6. Also, ANZ’s activity outlook turned out 32%. For what regards the greenback, repatriation flows will continue to offer support, especially with the disparities between Central Banks.
BOJ (Bank of Japan) announced on Friday that the base monetary target will remain the same in the substantial stimulus program, but the range of purchased assets will be expanded. The program’s pace is set at an 80 trillion YEN monetary base growth per year, which means roughly $655 billion. On the other hand, the range of purchased assets refers to an increase in ETF (exchange-traded funds) acquisition. BOJ will buy ETFs at a pace of 300 billion YEN per year ($2.45 billion), the ETFs consisting of stocks released by companies which are investing in human and physical capital.
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The new ETF program has the deployment date set for April, being an extension to the current program, presently at around 3 trillion YEN per year. The bank’s statement shed some light over the program’s objective, which is to offset BOJ’s impact of massive stock sales previously purchased from financial institutions back in 2002. The plan is that BOJ will sell those shares at an annual pace of 300 billion YEN for the next 10 years, aiming to encourage companies to allocate more funds for wages and investments.
The USD/CAD major ticked higher towards the end of the week, posting fresh highs after the release of latest Canadian inflation figures, the advance although failing to gather momentum and breaking decisively just above the 1.4000 handle. According to the latest information, the Canadian CPI (Consumer Price Index) came out 0.1% lower in November, with core inflation going down 0.3% and missing the expected 0.1% hike, respectively 0.0%. Compared to last year, the headline inflation went up 1.4% compared to 1.5%, core CPI printing +2.0% with an expected 2.3%.
Gold prices went up on Friday, recovering from a 2 week low at $1,046 in the aftermath of the American session on Thursday and favored by USD’s decline. The daily high pitched at $1,071 per ounce, the session closing at around $1,066 per ounce. The yellow metal managed to go into the weekend with Thursday’s losses erased and near the price with which it opened the week.
