CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Antipodean currencies such as the Australia and the New Zealand recovered from recent lows against their major currencies in the Asian session on Friday, amid improved global trade optimism.
A preliminary agreement between the United States and China aims to dramatically reduce tariffs-US charges on Chinese goods will be reduced from 145% to 30%, while China will lower tariffs on U.S. imports from 125% to 10%. Additionally, rising optimism about a possible US-Iran nuclear deal has boosted market mood.
The Australian Dollar (AUD) may gain traction following Thursday's stronger-than-expected labor market statistics, which helped dampen expectations for rapid rate reduction by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).
Markets have reduced their forecasts for the RBA's rate cuts to 75 basis points in total for 2025, down from over 100 basis points projected only weeks ago. Still, caution may prevail as investors prepare for the RBA's policy announcement next week, where a 25-basis point drop to 3.85% is generally expected, potentially preventing further AUD advances.
In economic news, data from BusinessNZ showed that the manufacturing sector in New Zealand continued to expand in April, and at a faster pace, with a Performance of Manufacturing Index score of 53.9. That's up from 53.2 in March.
The AUD and NZD traded lower in the early Asian trading today amid risk-off mood by the investors. Thereafter, the currencies rebounded against its major peers.
In the Asian trading today, the Australian dollar recovered to 0.6437 against the U.S. dollar, from a recent low of 0.6395. The aussie may test resistance around the 0.66 region.
Against the yen, the euro and the Canadian dollar, the aussie edged up to 93.50, 1.7418 and 0.8971 from a recent 8-day low of 92.75, a 4-day low of 1.7520 and a 3-day low of 0.8924, respectively. If the aussie extends its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around 97.00 against the yen, 1.80 against the euro and 0.90 against the loonie.
The NZ dollar rose to 85.92 against the yen and 1.8957 against the euro, from a recent more than a 2-week low of 85.08 and a 1-week low of 1.9104, respectively. If the kiwi extends its uptrend, it is likely to find its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around 88.00 against the yen and 1.88 against the euro.
Against the U.S. and the Australian dollars, the kiwi advanced to 0.5915 and 1.0872 from recent lows of 0.5866 and 1.0914, respectively. The kiwi is likely to find resistance around 0.60 against the greenback and 1.07 against the aussie.
Looking ahead, U.S. building permits, housing starts, import and export prices, all for April, U.S. University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index for May and U.S. Baker Hughes oil rig count data are slated for release in the New York session.
Copyright(c) 2025 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2025 AFX News
