File this one away in the “notable things you probably don’t care about” folder.
The kiwi plunged overnight on the heels of a jobs report that missed… well … it missed everything. I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on this, but do note the headline numbers:
- 2q employment fell 0.2% q/q; est. 0.7% gain
- 2q employment rose 3.1% y/y; est. 4.1% gain
Obviously, that’s a ‘bigly’ disappointment. #Sad.
And here was the result:
Most folks seem to think that’s an overreaction. Here’s Goldman:
New Zealand’s unemployment rate fell to an 8½-year low of 4.8% in 2Q2017 and the underutilization rate also declined to its lowest level since 2008 — despite weaker-than- expected jobs growth.
We caution against over-emphasizing this quarter’s weakness in the latter, and particularly given that jobs growth had surprised to the upside over the five prior quarters, domestic demand is running at a decade high, and that lead indicators on the labour market are robust.
Whatever.
All I know is that it pushed up implied vol. on NZDUSD across the curve.
This of course leads one to think that the RBNZ has more room to push a rate hike even further into the future. Any excuse right?
So no need to worry about August 10 on that score.
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