Ella 
In early Asian trading on Monday, the New Zealand dollar/US dollar rose close to the 0.6200 integer mark. Speculation that the Federal Reserve may be done raising interest rates dragged the greenback lower and boosted NZD/USD. As of press time, NZD/USD was trading around 0.6210, up 0.11% on the day.
In early trading on Monday, New Zealand’s third-quarter terms of trade index fell to a quarterly rate of -0.6%, compared with a previous reading of -0.3%. The quarterly rate of commodity export prices was – 1.5%, up from the previous value of – 6.8%; the quarterly rate of commodity import prices was – 0.8%, from the previous value – 1.0%.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand held the cash rate steady at 5.5% last week but noted that inflation remains too high and further tightening may be needed if price pressures do not ease. Despite this, the hawkish bias of the New Zealand Reserve Bank still boosted the New Zealand dollar and constituted a “tailwind” for NZD/USD.
On the other hand, this contrasts with the dovish tone of the Federal Reserve, which is currently believed to be ending its tightening cycle and starting to cut interest rates as early as March next year. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Friday it was too early to rule out additional interest rate hikes or start discussions about a rate cut.
In addition, the ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for November released by the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) on Friday was weaker than expected and remained unchanged at 46.7.
Market participants will be focused on U.S. factory orders for October. Later in the week, ANZ commodity prices and the US ISM services PMI will be released on Tuesday. Focus will turn to Friday’s U.S. non-farm payrolls (NFP) data, which is expected to add 180,000 jobs in November.
