Economic data still to come from New Zealand today:

At 2145GMT we get February Electronic Card Transactions:

  • Retail m/m, expected is +0.4%, prior was -0.4%
  • Total card spending m/m, prior was +0.1%

And that it!

We already had the ANZ Truckometer, which measure traffic volumes. Adam had the result, here: New Zealand Feb Truckometer -1.3% vs +0.9% prior

ANZ tease out the implications of traffic volume on nine specific roads, using it as a proxy for GDP growth.

For February, comments from ANZ:

  • The ANZ Heavy Traffic Index fell 1.3% in February, but it was off a strong lift over the previous two months (seasonally adjusted)
  • The ANZ Light Traffic Index leads GDP by six months. It lifted 1% in February,after being flat the previous month(sa).
  • The two indexes show solid growth when we smooth out monthly noise.
  • Signals from our Truckometer are consistent with solid growth across the economy; we are picking nearly 3% annual average growth over 2015-despite drought impacts.
  • While we are keeping a nervous eye on offshore developments,with New Zealand's two largest trading partners experiencing slowing growth, New Zealand itself is bucking that trend and showing considerable pep

Still not much of a response from the NZD. AUD and NZD near their US lows as I update.