XE Morning Update - October 15, 2019

The NZDUSD opens lower at 0.6296 this morning.

Optimism over a potential US-China trade agreement faded overnight. This hurt global growth-oriented currencies such as the NZD & AUD, while the benefitting the USD.

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the U.S. and China have reached a “very substantial phase one deal.” Subsequent reports indicate China wants another round of talks before signing the agreement – this could take place at next months APEC summit. It is also rumoured that China wants the US to also scrap a planned tariff hike in December in addition to the hike scheduled for this week.

Analysts said the partial deal between the world’s two largest economies appeared to lack substance with limited progress on structural issues such as technology transfer.

The GBPUSD dropped after the European Union and Britain stressed a lot more work is needed before they could agree a Brexit. However, the NZDGBP was little changed as they both weakened by similar amount against the USD.

The NZD began slipping lower yesterday after data showed China's exports declined more than expected in September reflecting weak global growth and trade disputes with the US administration.

NZ Visitor Arrivals numbers is released at 10:45am, followed in the afternoon by Reserve Bank of Australia minutes from its latest monetary policy meeting (where they cut rates by 0.25%) and Chinese inflation data.

Global equity markets were mostly slightly lower on the day - Dow -0.0%, S&P 500 -0.1%, FTSE -0.5%, DAX -0.2%, CAC -0.4%, Nikkei +1.2%, Shanghai +1.2%.

Gold prices rose 0.3% higher to USD$1,492 an ounce. WTI Crude Oil prices plunged 2.4% to US$53.36 per barrel.

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