The NZD has come off the highs seen yesterday following US Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s dovish statement. Markets return to safe-haven currencies in anticipation of the upcoming G20 summit held this weekend in Argentina, over uncertainty of the outcome between the US and China trade talks.

US President Donald Trump sent conflicting messages commenting Washington was close to making a trade deal with China but is not sure he wants to do it and likes where things stand now.

Fed Minutes – rate hike warranted soon

Minutes of the recent Federal Reserve meeting showed almost all Fed officials agreed to another interest rate hike and was “likely warranted fairly soon”. Those that agreed to further rate rises also expressed “uncertainty about the timing” and many said it would be appropriate at some upcoming meetings to place greater emphasis on the evaluation of incoming data in assessing the economic and policy outlook. Fed Chair Jerome Powell commented yesterday that rates were close to neutral and resulted in the USD sell-off. Expectations remain for another rate hike when the Fed next meet in December.

NZ Business confidence remains flat

The ANZ NZ business confidence was unchanged at -37.1% in November with respondents expecting the economy to deteriorate over the year ahead with 7.6% of respondents expected their own businesses to grow in the next 12 months, up from the previous 7.4% last month. The NZD dropped on the announcement and markets will now look ahead to NZ Q4’s growth for further direction.

Locally we have the ANZ Consumer Confidence report at 10am.