NZD/USD sticks to daily gains above 0.73
|- Upbeat data from China boosts the demand for AUD and NZD.
- DXY fails to stay in the positive territory.
- Mixed macroeconomic data from the U.S. fails to help the buck.
The NZD/USD pair gained traction in the Asian session and has never looked back to rise above the 0.73 handle on Thursday. As of writing, the pair was trading at 0.7310, gaining 0.75% on the day.
Earlier today, the data from China, New Zealand's biggest trading partner, showed that the economic activity expanded at a robust pace with the GDP growth coming in at 1.6% and 6.8% on a quarterly and yearly basis respectively in December 2017 while the industrial production increased by 6.2%. Boosted by the data, the AUD and the NZD gathered strength against the greenback.
Later in the day, despite a modest rise to a fresh three day at 90.77, the US Dollar Index failed to preserve its momentum and turned negative on the day. Although the weekly jobless claims dropped to its lowest level since 1973 at 220K, the disappointing Philly Fed Manufacturing Index and housing starts figures from the U.S. offset the potential positive impact of the claims data. At the moment, the DXY is down 0.35% on the day at 90.34.
There won't be any other macroeconomic data releases in the remainder of the day. In fact, tomorrow's economic docket won't be offering any significant data either and the pair's price action is likely to continue to be dominated by the DXY fluctuations.
Technical levels to consider
0.7330 (Jan. 17 high) could be seen as the first hurdle for the pair ahead of 0.7415 (Sep. 20 high) and 0.7500 (psychological level). On the downside, supports align at 0.7240 (daily low/10-DMA), 0.7150 (200-DMA) and 0.7070 (Jan. 4 low).
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