Investing.com - The New Zealand dollar moved higher against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand left interest rates unchanged, while the Australian currency was little changed.
NZD/USD gained 0.61% to 0.7251 after the RBNZ held the benchmark interest rate at 1.75%, in a widely expected move, and indicated that it has no plans to hike rates anytime soon.
“Monetary policy will remain accommodative for a considerable period,” RBNZ Governor Graeme Wheeler said in a statement.
Wheeler added that “a lower New Zealand dollar would help rebalance the growth outlook towards the tradables sector,” but also noted the currency’s recent gains were partly driven by higher export prices.
AUD/USD held steady at 0.7555, just off a one-week low of 0.7208 hit overnight.
The U.S. dollar showed no reaction to Wednesday’s report by the U.S. National Association of Realtors saying that existing home sales increased by 1.1% in May to 5.62 million units, confounding expectations for a 0.5% drop.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was little changed at 97.17.