WELLINGTON: The New Zealand and Australian dollars traded a touch firmer in holiday dampened markets on Monday as investors moved on from last week's offshore induced activity and looked towards looming local data releases.
The Antipodeans had been buffeted first by the US jobs numbers, which saw them appreciate, and then been weighed down by soft Chinese trade data released at the weekend.
The Aussie was at $0.9353, in sight of Friday's three-week high of $0.9358.
The kiwi was trading around $0.8514, having briefly touched a one-week high of $0.8555 after the US jobs data. Activity was thin with Australian markets closed for a public holiday.
Attention is on Thursday's Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) monetary policy statement, which is expected to deliver a 25 basis point rate rise to 3.25 percent, the third tightening in as many reviews.
The RBNZ's statement and forecasts will be scrutinised for indications it may pause and slow the pace of rate hikes because of a fall in commodity prices, and high exchange rate which is further dampening already-benign inflation pressures.
Markets have trimmed expectations of future rate rises over the next 12 months to 80 basis points, compared with about 110 basis points after the last statement.
However, a local analyst said offsetting factors of strong migration gains and more government spending in the pipeline, backed the case for steady rate hikes.
"If the RBNZ fails to endorse market pricing, as we expect, then the New Zealand dollar should rise towards $0.8600 this week," said Westpac senior strategist Imre Speizer.
The kiwi was unmoved by data showing a fall of 0.4 percent in wholesale sales in the three months to March 31, after the previous two solid quarters.
The data tempered expectations of upside risks to first quarter growth data, due next week, which is seen coming in about 1 percent. Australia's data calendar includes business and consumer confidence surveys, and May monthly jobs data, which is expected to see the jobless rate nudge up to 5.9 percent.
On the cross rates the Antipodeans were faring well, with the Aussie pushing to a three-week high versus the yen at 95.87 yen, and the kiwi just shy of Friday's three-week peak at 87.30 yen.
Both currencies were up around 0.2 percent against the euro consolidating much of the gains made after the ECB rate cut last week.
The kiwi's general outperformance saw it gain on the Aussie, which nudged lower to NZ$1.0977 from last week's six-month high of NZ$1.1034.
New Zealand government bonds had a hint of an offered tone, fractionally raising yields.
Australian government bond futures were also little changed, with the three-year bond contract a tick lower at 97.160, and the 10-year contract also a tick lower at 96.220.
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