Highs For Aussie, Kiwi Dollars

By Glenn Dyer | More Articles by Glenn Dyer

It's the news the Reserve Bank of Australia wants to see, it's probably not the news its New Zealand counterpart is too enthusiastic about.

The Australian and New Zealand dollars had another big day yesterday and overnight, hitting new 18 year highs as Japanese speculators sold yen to buy high yield currencies and underlying investments.

The RBA is due to meet today to consider interest rates: the upward move by the dollar to well over 85 USc will see no move in rates: the anti-inflationary benefits are a big, probably uncounted bonus at the bank's HQ in Sydney.

In New Zealand though the higher dollar is hurting exporters and forcing more offshore.

Profit downgrades are happening for exporters like Fisher and Paykel Healthcare. The country's export sector is not happy, even though the world price for dairy products is at record highs, meaning a flood of cash into the economy over the next two years.

The higher Aussie is taking the top off higher prices of imports, such as for oil and petrol, meaning that the June quarter Consumer Price Index will be fairly mild.

Also driving some of the action was the weakness in the US dollar, because of better than expected core inflation numbers released on Friday, although the yen carry trade dealings was the main factor.

The US dollar was trading near its all time low against the euro overnight.

The Australian dollar traded at 85.21 US cents late yesterday in Sydney after reaching 85.31 cents, the highest since February 1989. It finished at 84.93 cents in New York late last Friday. It had traded just over 85 US cents in Sydney Friday afternoon.

It hit 85.95 USc in New York overnight.

The Kiwi dollar hit 77.52 USc after touching 77.58 cents yesterday, the highest since being floated in 1985. It was around 77.25 USc last Friday.

It too rose strongly overnight, hitting 78.22 USc.

Australia's dollar will rise to 90 cents and New Zealand's to 80 cents over the next six months, according to economists quoted yesterday by AAP and Bloomberg.

The US dollar weakened on the expectation there would be no move in interest rates this year.

That was after the US Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, the core personal consumption expenditure deflator, rose by 0.1 per cent in May for an annual rate of 1.9 per cent, the lowest annual growth rate since March 2004.

That means inflation is now back within the Fed's preferred range of one to two per cent, which lessens the chances of a rate rise in coming months, but also lessens the chance of a rate cut.

There's just no need to touch US rates at the moment.

European interest rates look like remaining steady after the European central bank meets this week. The current official rate is four per cent.

But dealers say the Bank of England is now widely expected to boost its official indicator rate to 5.75 per cent at its meeting on July 18.

While spreads between Australian and new Zealand Government bond yields and US bond yields are widening slowly, making our bonds more attractive, they are narrowing against those in Europe and Britain.

The move to lift British rates, and the continuing selling of the yen for high yield currencies like the Aussie and Kiwi dollars, will pressure the US dollar, adding further upward momentum to the local currencies in this part of the world.

About Glenn Dyer

Glenn Dyer has been a finance journalist and TV producer for more than 40 years. He has worked at Maxwell Newton Publications, Queensland Newspapers, AAP, The Australian Financial Review, The Nine Network and Crikey.

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