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Wall Street showed positive momentum for the third consecutive trading day. Near the close, the Nasdaq was up 1.3%, the S&P 500 rose 0.8%, and the Dow Jones gained 0.4%. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield slightly increased to 4.59%, while oil fell 0.5% to $75.50 per barrel. The AUD/USD traded in a range of 0.6253/0.6295, settling at 0.6280 before the Asian market open.
President Trump made headlines again, stating that if a peace deal in Ukraine is not reached soon, the U.S. “will impose high taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything sold by Russia to the U.S.” However, the market showed little reaction to these comments. The AUD/USD traded within the 0.6253/0.6295 range, while USD/JPY continued to rise, reaching a high of 156.715. Other major currency pairs showed limited movement.
Asian stock markets closed with mixed results. The Nikkei index rose 1.6%, while the Hang Seng and Shenzhen indices fell 1.6% and 1.0% respectively. Australia’s ASX index maintained its upward momentum, rising 0.3%, with strong performances in the information technology and industrial sectors.
Before the European markets opened, the UK’s December budget deficit exceeded expectations of £14.2 billion, reaching £17.8 billion. Following the data release, GBP/USD weakened slightly, touching an intraday low of 1.2312. Shortly after, UK’s Reeves emphasized economic growth as the government’s primary objective and stated that UK public finances are now under control. ECB’s key speaker Lagarde stressed that inflation would reach its target in 2025, indicating that the ECB’s direction for rate cuts was clear, with the pace to be determined by data. Additionally, ECB’s Stournaras detailed that interest rate cuts would be around 25 basis points each time, aiming to approach 2% by the end of 2025.
European stock markets opened strongly across the board. The FTSE index slipped into the red zone in late trading, closing slightly lower than its opening. The CAC 40 index closed up 0.9%, while the DAX index rose 1%.
Here are the latest mid-market rates:
Currency Pair | Mid-market Rate |
---|---|
NZD/USD | 0.5663 |
NZD/AUD | 0.9031 |
NZD/JPY | 88.59 |
NZD/CNY | 4.1184 |
NZD/EUR | 0.5441 |
NZD/GBP | 0.4599 |
NZD/HKD | 4.4100 |
NZD/SGD | 0.7669 |
Char of the day