NZD/USD crawls above 0.5980 on upbeat Chinese data and a softer US Dollar

The New Zealand Dollar bounced up from multi-week lows at 0.5968 duru¡ing Tuesday’s Asian session and trimmed some of the previous losses fuelled by upbeat China’s GDP data returning above 0.5980 at the time of writing.

The broader trend, however, remains bearish after having depreciated about 1% over the last two days and nearly 2% from July 1, with the area around the 0.6000 round level likely to pose a significant resistance for bulls.

Upbeat data from China lifted market sentiment

Earlier on Tuesday, data released by the Chinese Statistics Bureau revealed that the economy grew at a 5.2% pace in the second quarter of the year, below the 5.4% growth seen in the previous quarter but still above the 5.1% reading forecasted by market analysts.

Beyond that, Industrial Production accelerated to a 6.8% yearly growth in June from 5.8% in May, against expectations of a moderate slowdown to 5.6%.

The weaker-than-expected Retail Sales added to evidence of a weak domestic demand, but the overall data was welcomed by the market, which has been seen as a sign of resilience to the US tariffs. Market sentiment improved during the Asian session, lifting risk-sensitive currencies such as the New Zealand Dollar.

On the other hand, the US Dollar is pulling lower, as investors trim US Dollar longs, awaiting the release of the US Consumer Price Index for further clues on the Fed’s monetary policy path.