NZD/USD nosedives on big miss in New Zealand’s GDP

Stats New Zealand released the further quarter Gross Domestic Product. New Zealand GDP SA (QoQ) Q4: -0.6% (est -0.2%; prev 2.0%).

New Zealand’s dollar is getting smacked after softer local GDP data. NZ GDP was 2.2% y/y in Q4 vs 3.3% seen and down from 6.4% prior. Odds of an RBNZ rate hike in April have been fading since Wednesday, a 25bps move is now about 50% priced in.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has been saying for months and months and months that it’ll hike rates into the recession. As for forex reaction, the NZD/USD pair has dropped around 25 pips on the fresh GDP data. The NZD/USD pair is trading at 0.6155 at the time of writing.