In early Asian trading on Tuesday, NZD/USD rose slightly to above 0.6000. NZD/USD upside remains limited as investors remain concerned about a potential downturn in the real estate sector, an economic slowdown and subdued investor sentiment. NZD/USD is currently trading around 0.6077, up 0.03% throughout the day.
Fed members warned that it might not be appropriate to cut interest rates too early and that the committee would need to focus on ensuring that inflation remains stable around 2.0% before cutting rates. San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly said on Friday that the Fed still has a lot of work to do to bring inflation back to its 2% target, and it was too early to believe that a rate cut was imminent.
On Tuesday, the latest data from the New Zealand Business Association (Business NZ) showed that New Zealand’s BNZ services industry performance index recorded 48.8 in December, compared with 51.2 in November. New Zealand business research director Stephen Toplis said the weakening BNZ services sector performance index was bad news for New Zealand’s near-term economic growth and employment.