NZD/USD: down below 0.68 on hawkish FOMC

NZD/USD has dropped on the back of hawkish minutes from the FOMC meeting in April.

FOMC minutes: June hike 'likely'

The minutes showed that most officials saw June hike 'likely' if economy warranted. This fuelled speculation, especially after the recent surprise spike in CPI and hawkishness from Fed speakers Lockhart and Williams yesterday that June is indeed a live meeting. However, the minutes also highlighted risks and some cited Brexit and China as risks along with the projection for inflation that were still judged as weighted to the downside, but that was before the better than expected CPI results earlier this week.

GDT: a broad based improvement - ANZ

Despite the mild improvement this week in the GDT index, NZD/USD fell from 0.6814 highs to 0.6729 lows on the news and has tracked the Aussie and commodity bloc currencies with oil dropping like a barrel off a cargo ship due to the rally in the greenback. Oil is down to $4780 lows from a high of $48.97.

NZD/USD levels

NZD/USD is back into bearish territory below the 4hr 20 sma and others headed towards 10th May lows at 0.6717 meeting 100 dma and breaking away below channel rising support. The 200 dma stands at 0.6643 as a key target ahead of 0.6580 key support. To the upside, the 55 dm stands at 0.6819 as putting the bird back into the rising channel.