Forexpros – The New Zealand dollar was sharply higher against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, rising to a three-day high as the announcement of fresh measures to tackle Greece’s sovereign debt boosted risk appetite.
NZD/USD hit 0.8088 during late Asian trade, the pair’s highest since October 24; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.8107, jumping 1.22%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.7913, the low of October 26 and resistance at 0.8193, the high of June 22.
European leaders reached an agreement with private banks on a voluntary 50% reduction of Greece’s debt in the hands of private investors, curbing risks of a Greek default. The writedown will reduce Greece’s debt burden from 160% of GDP to a more sustainable 120% by 2020.
The leaders also agreed to scale up the euro zone’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to EUR1 trillion and to recapitalize European banks by EUR106 billion, though they did not say how the money would be provided.
Elsewhere, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand left its interest rate unchanged at 2.50% earlier, saying that recovery needs more stimuli to return back strongly on track before the end of the year.
Official data also showed that New Zealand’s trade balance fell unexpectedly in September to minus 751 million from minus 697 million the previous month.
The kiwi was also higher against the euro with EUR/NZD shedding 0.34%, to hit 1.7299.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to publish preliminary data on third quarter GDP, as well as the GDP price index, the broadest measure of inflation. The country was also to publish its weekly data on initial jobless claims.
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