NZD/USD hits fresh 20-month high as RBNZ's Orr offers positive take on the economy

NZD/USD adds 10 pips to hit a new 20-month high of 0.6870.
RBNZ's Orr says the economy has been more resilient than expected.
The central bank kept interest rates unchanged and boosted the bond-buying program early Wednesday.

Omkar Godbole FXStreet Contributor

The already bid NZD/USD is extending gains following the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) governor Orr's positive comments on the state of the economy.

"The economic activity domestically and internationally has been more resilient than earlier assumed," Orr said during the post-rate decision press conference while taking note of the below-target inflation and employment.

The NZD/USD pair jumped from 0.6860 to 0.6870, the new session high, following Orr's comments, having rallied from 0.6815 to 0.6868 early today.

The pair picked up a bid below 0.6820 after the central bank kept the Official Cash Rate unchanged at 0.25%. The RBNZ boosted its large scale asset purchase program by NZD 100 billion and marked readiness to cut the rates to negative while announcing the launch of the Funding for Lending Program (FLP), which offers funds directly to the banks at a rate near the OCR in December. The additional easing, however, failed to entice sellers.

The Kiwi has put in a solid performance off late on the back of New Zealand's relative success in controlling the second wave of the coronavirus. Besides, markets are increasingly worried that the rising number of cases in the US may force some states to reimpose lockdown. Major European nations like Germany and France have already announced the economically-painful lockdown restrictions.

Technical levels

NZD/USD

Overview
Today last price	0.6870
Today Daily Change	0.0039
Today Daily Change %	0.57
Today daily open	0.6823

Trends
Daily SMA20	0.6677
Daily SMA50	0.6661
Daily SMA100	0.6621
Daily SMA200	0.6399

Levels
Previous Daily High	0.6841
Previous Daily Low	0.6804
Previous Weekly High	0.6803
Previous Weekly Low	0.6589
Previous Monthly High	0.6726
Previous Monthly Low	0.6546
Daily Fibonacci 38.2%	0.6818
Daily Fibonacci 61.8%	0.6827
Daily Pivot Point S1	0.6804
Daily Pivot Point S2	0.6785
Daily Pivot Point S3	0.6767
Daily Pivot Point R1	0.6842
Daily Pivot Point R2	0.686
Daily Pivot Point R3	0.6879

Author

Omkar Godbole

FXStreet Contributor

Omkar Godbole, editor and analyst, joined FXStreet after four years as a research analyst at several Indian brokerage companies.

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