Investing.com - The New Zealand dollar continued its recent spell of weakness against its U.S. rival during Thursday’s Asian session after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand made no changes to interest rates.
In Asian trading Thursday, NZD/USD dropped 0.95% to 0.7908. The pair was likely to find support at 0.7836, the low of June 10 and resistance at 0.8016, the high of June 7.
Earlier Thursday, RBNZ opted to keep interest rates at a record low of 2.5% while reiterating its commitment to keep rates low through the end of this year. RBNZ has been steadfast in its commitment to not alter rates this year and some traders expect the central bank will raise rates early in 2014.
In a statement, RBNZ continued to express concern about a possible housing bubble in New Zealand.
"Given this outlook, we expect to keep the OCR (official cash rate) unchanged through the end of the year," Governor Graeme Wheeler said in the release.
On a more cheery note, the central bank said rebuilding efforts in Canterbury will help boost the country’s GDP growth to 3.5% in the back half of next year, which is slightly above RBNZ’s previous estimate.
Wheeler added that RBNZ will again intervene in the currency market should the kiwi begin rising again. In a note published earlier Thursday, TDSecurities reiterated its year-end target for NZD/USD of 0.8300.
On Wednesday in New Zealand, industrial data showed that house price inflation rose 0.7% in May, after a 0.8% increase the previous month.
Elsewhere, NZD/JPY plunged 2.15% to 74.99 while AUD/NZD climbed 0.54% to 1.1937.