New Zealand dollar falls below US$0.58

Key Movers

The US dollar Index (DXY), which measures the value of the USD against a basket of currencies, trades neutral on Friday with some minor gains in the US trading session. The US dollar seems to get some traction due to rising US Treasury yields, which seem to be offsetting the fact that markets are practically pricing in a cut in next week's Fed decision. Last week on the data front there were 242,000 initial jobless claims in the week ending December 7, the weekly data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) showed on Thursday. This print followed the previous week's print of 225,000 (revised from 224,000) and came in worse than the market expectation of 220,000. Further details of the publication revealed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2% and the 4-week moving average stood at 224,250, an increase of 5,750 from the previous week's revised average. A measure of wholesale prices rose more than expected in November as questions percolated over whether progress in bringing down inflation has slowed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. The producer price index, or PPI, which measures what producers get for their products at the final-demand stage, increased 0.4% for the month, higher than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 0.2%. On an annual basis, PPI rose 3%, the biggest advance since February 2023. The PPI release comes a day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index, or CPI, a more widely cited inflation gauge, also nudged higher in November to 2.7% on a 12-month basis and 0.3% month over month. Following the release, economists generally viewed the data this week as mostly benign, with underlying indicators still pointing towards enough disinflation to get the Fed back to its 2% target eventually.