ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: RBNZ raises cash rate more than expected, NZD higher

  • Forex news for Asian trading on Wednesday, 5 April 2023

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised its cash rate target by 50bp today, to 5.25%. A +25bp was the consensus expected, and very widely at that. The RBNZ blew that out of the water. Governor Orr is hell-bent on driving inflation down in the country. There is more detail in the bullets above.

NZD/USD was marked higher on the announcement and has currently not yet filled in that gap.

There was little other data nor news to drive forex markets far from where the US time zone left them. Hong Kong and China were out on holiday for the day, which sapped a good deal of interest from the session.

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Lowe gave a speech, the topic was “Monetary Policy, Demand and Supply”. Lowe didn’t add very much at all to what was said yesterday, although a clear subtext to his words seems to be that the Bank is watching the impact of higher rates on overseas economies to help sap demand from the Australian economy (perhaps via reduced demand for Australian exports? Good luck with that as China ramps up).

While on central banks, Loretta Mester, president and CEO of Federal Reserve Bank Cleveland branch spoke, saying she sees Fed rates higher for longer

Asian equity markets:

  • Japan’s Nikkei 225 %

  • South Korea’s KOSPI %

  • Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 %

nzdusd rbnz wrap 05 April 2023

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