New Zealand Dollar Down Late on U.S.Dollar Strength

 
   By Lucy Craymer 
 

        WELLINGTON, New Zealand--The New Zealand dollar was lower late Thursday on broad-based U.S. dollar strength.
        The U.S. dollar jumped against a number of currencies including the New Zealand dollar after Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen signaled the central bank could raise U.S. interest rates at its April 2015 meeting at the earliest.
        Ms. Yellen's remarks moved forward market expectations for higher interest rates and sent the dollar soaring to 118.65 yen in late afternoon trade, up 1.9% for the session.
        Chris Hunter, Western Union Business Solutions corporate dealing manager, said pressure remains on the New Zealand dollar, which failed to breach through support around US$0.7680.
        He added that the release of local-growth data neither helped nor hindered the currency "with the quarterly result being stronger than expected, but the annualized result being slightly softer than expected."
        Statistics New Zealand said Thursday the gross-domestic product rose 1.0% from the quarter before in the three months to Sept. 30. GDP rose 3.2% from a year earlier. The median expectation in a Wall Street Journal poll of 11 economists was for sequential growth of 0.7% and year-over-year growth of 3.3%.
        In late Wellington trading Wednesday, the New Zealand dollar was at US$0.7711 versus US$0.774 late Wednesday. It was at A$0.947 compared with A$0.9488 late Wednesday.
        Write to Lucy Craymer at lucy.craymer@wsj.com, @lucy_craymer
        (END) Dow Jones Newswires

        December 17, 2014 23:39 ET (04:39 GMT)

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