Breaking: NZ Government mulls adding house prices as a factor in RBNZ's remit, NZD/USD nears 0.70

FXStreet Team FXStreet

New Zealand’s (NZ) Finance Minister Grant Robertson said Tuesday, the government is seeking advice on whether to include stability in house prices as a factor in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s (RBNZ) remit while formulating the monetary policy.

Additional takeaways

Have written to RBNZ governor Orr seeking advice on housing market.

Expect to receive advice from RBNZ by end of the year.

Not proposing any changes to RBNZ's mandate or independence.

Govt reviewing housing settings.

This comes as interest rates are at record lows while property investors and first-home buyers competing for limited housing stock in New Zealand, which has led house prices to surge by 20% on the year despite the pandemic.

Market reaction

NZD/USD jolted higher nearly 50-pips on the above comments, hitting the highest levels since June 2018 at 0.6982.

The spot gains 0.70% on the day, looking to regain the 0.70 barrier.

NZD/USD 15-minutes chart

Author

FXStreet Team

FXStreet

Composed of a group of economic journalists and FX experts, the FXStreet content team produces and oversees all content published on FXStreet. It provides a purely journalistic approach to the Forex market.

GBP/USD clings to daily gains near 1.3550

GBP/USD adds to Friday’s advance, briefly hitting three-month tops near 1.3570 before edging lower on Monday. Fading expectations of a Fed rate hike in September weigh on the Greenback, helping Cable to keep its bullish momentum ahead of the release of the UK jobs report on Tuesday.

EUR/USD: Gains appear capped by 1.1600

EUR/USD consolidates its daily gains well north of the 1.1500 hurdle following the closing bell on Wall Street on Monday. The pair’s multi-day bounce comes on the back of renewed selling pressure on the US Dollar investors continue to trim bets of Fed rate hikes. Moving forward, Germany’s ZEW prints are due on Tuesday alongside a slew of US hard data.

Gold loses some traction, still above $4,400

Gold faces some loss of momentum and slips back toward the vicinity of the $4,400 mark per troy ounce on Monday. The yellow metal adds to Friday’s uptick and its positive performance follows the steady offered stance in the US Dollar amid dwindling bets for further tightening by the Fed in the next few months.

Strategy pauses Bitcoin sales, increases USD Reserve to $4.8 billion

Bitcoin (BTC) treasury firm Strategy (MSTR) increased its USD Reserve to $4.8 billion after raising $333.7 million through common stock sales, while also repurchasing $132.2 million of its STRC preferred shares, according to a Form 8-K filing on Monday. Strategy sold 3.458 million shares of its Class A common stock, MSTR, last week, generating $333.7 million in net proceeds.

Economists agree: Fed to leave interest rates unchanged this year – Reuters poll

A large majority of economists expect the Federal Reserve (Fed) to keep interest rates unchanged in September and for the rest of this year, according to a Reuters poll conducted between August 12 and 17.

Why is Crude Oil priced for a reopening the ships haven't made?

Fourteen vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. Before the war, the count ran near 120 a day. In the sessions since the waterway was publicly declared open, Brent has drifted back to $87 and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) to $81, both a little lower again on Wednesday, with daily momentum on each unwound from the top of its range in late July to the low twenties now.