The Pound softened against the New Zealand Dollar on Tuesday as weaker-than-expected UK construction PMI data weighed.
The ‘Kiwi’ was already finding support earlier in the session from expectations that tomorrow’s GDP data out of Australia will come in strongly enough to send both the Australian Dollar and New Zealand Dollar higher.
Data released today showed that the UK’s construction sector expanded at its slowest pace in seven months in May reducing some of the optimism over the nation’s economic outlook.
The report released by market research firm Markit and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply showed that their U.K. Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index dropped to a seasonally adjusted level of 60.0 last month, down from the reading of 60.8 in April.
Economists had been expecting the index to hold steady at 60.8 in May.
“Output growth hit a seven-month low in May, but the UK construction sector is enjoying its strongest overall phase of expansion since the summer of 2007,” said Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit and the author of the report.
Earlier in the session the Pound had found support from a report released by the Nationwide Building Society which showed that UK house prices climbed to a new record high last month. The data suggests that recent signs of a slowdown in the housing market may have been a temporary blip.
The ‘Kiwi’s’ gains are likely to be short-lived as economists are becoming concerned that a fall in the value of dairy goods which are New Zealand’s biggest export commodity could have a negative impact upon the nation’s economy.
New Zealand Dollar (NZD) Exchange Rates
[table width=”100%” colwidth=”50|50|50|50|50″ colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Currency, ,Currency,Rate ,
New Zealand Dollar,
,US Dollar,0.8466 ,
New Zealand Dollar,, Pound Sterling,0.5049 ,
New Zealand Dollar,,Euro,0.6226 ,
New Zealand Dollar,,Australian Dollar,0.9126 ,
Euro,, New Zealand Dollar ,1.6057 ,
US Dollar,, New Zealand Dollar ,1.1806 ,
Australian Dollar,, New Zealand Dollar ,1.0958 ,
Pound Sterling,, New Zealand Dollar ,1.9804 ,
[/table]
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