Forex will be focused on the Federal Open Market Committee meting this week, but there is the Reserve Bank of New Zealand also

Earlier previews of the RBNZ:

This one now, in brief, via Westpac NZ economists:

  • We expect the RBNZ will leave the OCR unchanged at next week's OCR Review. - However, there is still a one in three chance that the RBNZ cuts the OCR over the coming year.
  • We expect the tone of the OCR Review to be either neutral or dovish from a market point of view.
  • A neutral Review would simply restate that the next move could be "up or down." - The other possibility is that the RBNZ adopts a "soft" easing bias, explicitly warning that if the economy fails to accelerate as expected, the OCR could fall.
  • This would match RBNZ comments made in the media, and would be in the spirit of open and frank communication that the RBNZ has embraced.
  • It seems very unlikely that the RBNZ will issue a hawkish statement that causes interest rates and the exchange rate to rise. The balance of risks for next week's OCR Review is in the direction of lower interest rates and a lower exchange rate.