NZ Dollar Rises Amid Risk Appetite

(RTTNews) - The New Zealand dollar strengthened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Friday amid risk appetite, as stronger than expected U.S. retail sales and weekly jobless claims data helped ease concerns about a recession in the world's largest economy. However, this is expected to prompt the U.S. Fed to go for a lower interest rate cut in September.

Gains across most sectors led by miners and technology stocks, also led to the upturn of investor sentiment.

Crude oil prices climbed higher, as upbeat U.S. retail sales and jobless claims data raised optimism about the outlook for demand. Concerns about possible supply disruptions due to the tensions in the Middle East also contributed to the increase in oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September ended higher by $1.18 or about 1.53% at $78.16 a barrel.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand governor Adrian Orr commented on the prospect of cutting rates another 50 basis points by this year.

In the Asian trading now, the NZ dollar rose to more than a 2-week high of 89.77 against the yen, from yesterday's closing value of 89.33. The NZD/JPY may test resistance near the 94.00 region.

Against the euro and the U.S. dollar, the kiwi advanced to 2-day highs of 1.8228 and 0.6025 from Thursday's closing quotes of 1.8335 and 0.5984, respectively. If the kiwi extends its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around 1.78 against the euro and 0.62 against the greenback.

The kiwi edged up to 1.1008 against the Australian dollar, from an early more than a 2-week low of 1.1058. The kiwi is likely to find resistance around the 1.08 region.

Looking ahead, Eurostat publishes euro area foreign trade data for June at 5:00 am ET in the European session.

In the New York session, Canada and U.S. housing starts for July, U.S. building permits for July, U.S. University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index for August and U.S. Baker Hughes oil rig count data are slated for release.