NZ Dollar Rises As Global Dairy Prices Lifts

(RTTNews) - The New Zealand dollar strengthened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Wednesday after the global milk price rose in this month's second Global Dairy Trade (GDT) auction held overnight.

The overall Global Dairy Trade price index rose to 4.6 percent, with an average price of US$2,957 per metric ton. In the previous auction held on September 5, the index had risen 2.7 percent.

A sum of 37,366 metric tons of dairy products were sold in the auction held overnight.

New Zealand's dairy giant Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd conducts the GDT auction, as the dairy sector generates the major share for the nation's GDP.

In economic news, data from Statistics New Zealand showed that New Zealand posted a current account deficit of NZ$4.21 billion in the second quarter of 2023. That beat forecasts for a shortfall of NZ$4.80 billion following the NZ$5.22 billion deficit in the previous three months.

On a yearly basis, the current account deficit was NZ$29.76 billion. That follows the NZ$33.03 billion deficit in the first quarter.

In the Asian trading today, the NZ dollar rose to more than a 2-week high of 0.5954 against the U.S. dollar and nearly a 2-month high of 87.98 against the yen, from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.5934 and 87.74, respectively. If the kiwi extends its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around 0.61 against the greenback and 89.00 against the yen.

Against the euro and the Australian dollar, the kiwi advanced to a 5-day high of 1.7946 and a 6-day high of 1.0855 from Tuesday's closing quotes of 1.7981 and 1.0869, respectively. The kiwi may test resistance around 1.77 against the euro and 1.07 against the aussie.

Looking ahead, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs is slated to release Swiss quarterly economic forecast at 3:00 am ET in the European session.

Also, European Central Bank executive board member Fabio Panetta is set to speak at a joint workshop of European Independent Fiscal Institutions and the ESCB in Frankfurt.

Half-an-hour later, Andrea Enria, chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB will deliver opening remarks at the ECB Supervision Innovators Conference in Frankfurt.

At 5:00 am ET, ECB's Isabel Schnabel will speak on current aspects of monetary policy at an event in Frankfurt.

In the New York session, U.S. MBA mortgage approvals data and U.S. EIA crude oil data are slated for release.

At 8:00 am ET, ECB Board Member Elizabeth McCaul will deliver a speech on "Technology, data and innovation - Shaping the future of supervision" at ECB Supervision Innovators Conference "Technology and banking supervision connected" in Frankfurt, Germany.

Half-an-hour later, ECB Board Member Frank Elderson Elderson will speak at Springtij Forum 2023 in Terschelling, Netherlands.

At 2:00 pm ET, the U.S. Federal Reserve's announce its monetary policy. The Fed is set to leave its key interest rate unchanged at 5.5 percent.

Half-an-hour later, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will deliver a speech after the Fed's latest policy-setting meeting.