NZDUSD 01-02-2018 Intra-day analysis

Daily Forex Market Preview, 01/02/2018

The FOMC meeting yesterday saw no changes to interest rates as widely expected. The central bank however came out with a hawkish statement as it said that inflation could move closer to the Fed’s 2% target rate over the medium term. Yesterday’s Fed meeting was also the final FOMC meeting chaired by Janet Yellen. The Fed committee also elected Jerome Powell as the next governor of the Federal Reserve. The U.S. dollar was broadly unchanged after the FOMC meeting.

The ADP payrolls data showed that the U.S. economy added 234k jobs during the month of January beating estimates of 186k. Previous month’s job numbers were slightly revised down to 242k.

Elsewhere, the Eurozone inflation data showed that consumer prices increased at a slower pace of 1.3% on the headline while core inflation picked up 1.0% in January. This was slightly faster than the 0.9% increase seen the month before.

Looking ahead the British manufacturing PMI data will be coming out today with the index forecast to rise slightly from 56.3 previously to 56.5. Later in the day, the ISM manufacturing PMI from the U.S. will be released.

 

NZDUSD intra-day analysis

NZDUSD (0.7369): The New Zealand dollar slipped from the previous highs around 0.7400 level. With price trading above 0.7333 we expect to see the upside staying intact for now. However, the failure to post a higher high could indicate that the rally has stalled. Watch for the support level at 0.7333 which could be critical as a break down below this level would suggest a move to the downside. Alternately, if the support holds on another retest we could expect further gains.