The week started with the NZD (and AUD) buoyed by the monthly “flash” update of Chinese Manufacturing PMI courtesy of HSBC. Yesterday’ afternoon’s release of the June update at 50.9 was a marked improvement. We always caution about reading too much into very modest changes in this index but the fact of it being back above 50, with increases in the sub-indices for output and new orders is encouraging and helped give a lift to investor sentiment through much of the Asian time zone, even if the Shanghai Composite couldn’t sustain the gains into the close to show a net loss of – 0.1% on the day.
Read the full report: FX Daily