NZ Dollar Soft After Retail Sales Miss Expectations

The New Zealand dollar was soft today, falling against the majority of its most-traded peers, though managing to gain on some of them. Today’s macroeconomic data in New Zealand did not show a clear picture of the nation’s economic wellbeing, thus failing to support the kiwi.
Statistics New Zealand reported that seasonally adjusted retail sales value rose by 4.9% in the December quarter of 2020 from the same period of the previous year. Retail sales volume rose by 4.8%, year-on-year. Electrical and electronic goods retailing was the biggest contributor to the increase, rising by 19% in terms of value and by 21% in volume. Quarter-on-quarter, though, the situation looked far worse. Retail sales dropped by 2.7%, much more than analysts had expected — 0.5%. Core retail sales (those that exclude important but volatile automobile and gas station sales) fell by 0.5%, also exceeding expectations of a 0.4% decrease.
For the rest of the trading session, the New Zealand dollar will be reacting to factors that will be driving the whole Forex market. The most notable of them is expected to be the testimony of Jerome Powell, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. As for events specific to the kiwi, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will make a policy announcement tomorrow during the Asian trading session. Analysts predicted that monetary policy will remain unchanged but that does not necessarily mean that the announcement will not have a big impact on the New Zealand currency.
NZD/USD slipped from 0.7327 to 0.7322 as of 11:39 GMT today, though rebounded from the session minimum of 0.7307. EUR/NZD was up from 1.6582 to 1.6655 intraday but has pulled back to 1.6589 by the time of writing. NZD/CHF opened at 0.6565, fell to the daily low of 0.6546 but rebounded to 0.6594 later — the highest level since July 2019.
If you have any questions, comments, or opinions regarding the New Zealand Dollar, feel free to post them using the commentary form below.

Original from: www.earnforex.com