NZD/USD pumped on USD sofitness, testing 0.61 handle

NZD/USD has been edging higher and broke above the 0.61 level by a handful of pips having travelled from a low of 0.6059 to a high of 0.6111, +0.23% at the time of writing as New Zealand opens for business after the Easter weekend ahead of full global markets.

The US dollar has not been as perky at the start of the week as the nation drowns in COVID-19 with the death toll surpassing the 20k mark as the US President, Donald Trump advocates for opening up the economy and putting the population back to work. The daily tally of deaths dropped Saturday and Sunday, which could be a sign for optimism, It will likely be a subject discussed in today's briefing by the US Task Force, but falling under much deserving scrutiny. 

Meanwhile, the fact that oil was unable to rally on the OPEC+ accord could be a spanner in the works for commodity-FX, including NZD. The world’s oil producers finally agreed on substantial production cuts of 9.7 million barrels a day. More on that here.

NZ appears on track to beat the virus

New Zealand is now into day 19 of lockdown with the Cabinet set to decide early next week whether we will drop to alert level 3 on or about Thursday next week. The 19 new cases announced today are made up of 15 confirmed and four probable cases. So far, 546 people have recovered. That's up 75 on yesterday. New Zealand, with five deaths, appears on track to beat the virus, with only 19 new cases yesterday and 75 recoveries.

However, specifically for the  bird, this week is all about ongoing Reserve Bank of New Zealand QE and government announcements. The announcements of a new Term Lending Facility (TLF) that will allow banks to fund themselves at low-interest rates for terms of up to three years has been taken in the market's stride. The stimulus is seen as a positive for the nations adopting it, seen as a short term measure to ensure financial stability.