Known as the 'Kiwi'. Behaves a lot like the Aussie dollar: sensitive to risk mood, dairy prices and the RBNZ.
Where NZD/USD closed and how far it's moved over different timeframes.
| 20-day average | 0.57384 |
| 50-day average | 0.58285 |
| 200-day average | 0.58482 |
Price is below its 50-day average, and the 50-day is below the 200-day. That's the textbook definition of a downtrend. In the shorter term, price is below its 20-day average. We tested whether this label predicts anything: on its own, it hasn't →
NZD/USD is 8% of the way from its 12-month low to its 12-month high. The average daily range of about 43 pips is a useful guide when sizing a stop: anything much tighter is likely to get caught by normal daily noise.
Levels many traders watch. They're reference points, not predictions: price respects some and slices through others. We tested whether pivots hold more often than random levels: they don't →
| Previous high | 0.56382 |
| Previous close | 0.56348 |
| Previous low | 0.55959 |
| Pivot R1 | 0.56500 |
| Daily pivot | 0.56230 |
| Pivot S1 | 0.56077 |
| This week's open | 0.56506 |
The gap between the two central banks' rates is one of the biggest long-term drivers of any currency pair.
| RBNZ (NZD) | 2.75% · hiking |
| Fed (USD) | 3.875% · hiking |
| Rate gap (NZD minus USD) | −1.12% |
USD pays 1.12% more. In theory, being short NZD/USD earns that gap overnight, and the other way round pays it. What your broker actually credits or charges will be less generous. All central bank rates →
Two-year government bond yields show what markets expect central banks to do over the next couple of years. Traders compare the two countries' yields as a guide to where money is being drawn.
We don't have a free daily source for New Zealand's 2-year government yield that our server can reach, so there's no yield-gap chart for NZD/USD yet. The interest-rate gap above still applies.
Dairy is New Zealand's biggest export and China is its biggest customer, so dairy prices and Chinese demand feed into the New Zealand dollar. When both are strong, NZD/USD tends to find support; when they weaken, it tends to weigh. It is a lean on direction, not a signal.
Dairy prices can't be shown in a free embedded chart, so this chart is copper (US dollars per pound), a common gauge of Chinese and global demand. It stands in for the China side only. The dairy side comes from the Global Dairy Trade auctions, held about every two weeks: Open the latest GDT results →
The link comes and goes, and NZD often trades more like AUD and general risk appetite than like dairy. Quick check: over the last 20 daily candles, did NZD/USD move the same way as this chart on at least 12 of them? If not, ignore it for now.
What the big speculators hold in NZD futures, from the weekly CFTC Commitments of Traders report.
| Net position (NZD futures) | −17,315 contracts |
| Change on the week | −5,935 |
| Share of open interest | -15.1% |
| Where that sits over 3 years | 52th percentile |
Large speculators (hedge funds and other big traders) as of Tue 29 Sep. Speculators being net short NZD lines up with being short NZD/USD. COT reports →
Scheduled data and speeches for NZD and USD from the Satdish economic calendar.