SYDNEY: The Australian and New Zealand dollars slipped on Monday, guided lower by yuan weakness amid increasing deflationary pressure in China, while traders await a week packed with central bank meetings to keep buying into their interest rate-cut hope.
The Aussie slipped 0.3% to $0.6556, having fallen 1.5% last week in the first decline in four weeks.
It eased 0.4% on Friday as an upbeat US payrolls report saw investors scale back expectations for a March cut by the Federal Reserve, supporting the US dollar.
Resistance is now at $0.6620 while support is $0.6526.
The kiwi was off 0.1% at $0.6113 after a weekly drop of 1.4% to snap a three-week winning streak.
It fell 0.8% on Friday, with support at $0.6104.
The two Antipodeans - which are often sold as liquid proxies for China’s currency - tracked the yuan lower after data at the weekend showed consumer prices in China fell 0.5% in November, pointing to still-sluggish domestic demand despite recent hope that the economic slowdown had bottomed out.
Looking ahead, the Antipodean currencies face critical tests this week from US inflation data on Tuesday, a Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday and Australian labour market data on Thursday.
Markets are already pricing in an easing of more than 100 basis points from the Fed next year.
The European Central Bank, Bank of England, Norges Bank and the Swiss National Bank also meet on Thursday.
“The Aussie benefited from the broad USD slide in November but has pulled back sharply from potentially extending gains into 0.67-0.68,” said Westpac strategist Tim Riddell.
“Aussie may now be constrained by the cool investor response to China’s fiscal stimulus measures and ongoing concern over property sector stress, notwithstanding the strength of iron ore prices.”
Australian yields tracked movement in US Treasuries on Friday after the payrolls report sent bonds lower.
The three-year Australian government bond yield rose 4 basis points to 3.956%, while the 10-year was 2 bps higher at 4.334%.
New Zealand will report third-quarter economic growth on Thursday, with analysts expecting gross domestic output to have expanded by a tepid 0.2% from the previous quarter’s 0.9%.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has said resilience in demand could lead to another rate hike.
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