FX.co ★ AUD/NZD. Down, just down!

The Australian dollar is rapidly getting cheaper against the New Zealand currency. In just a week, the AUD/NZD cross has dropped by more than 250 points. The bears have marked themselves at 1.0899, having tested the boundaries of the 8th figure. This is a multi-month low: the last time the price was in this area was in April of this year. However, the downward trend of AUD/NZD did not start a week ago – since October 27, we have been observing only another downward wave. Bearish sentiment has dominated the pair since the end of September. Immediately after the price reached an 11-year high (1.1481), the initiative was abruptly intercepted by the bears. Take a look at the weekly chart: throughout October, each candle on W1 reflected another round of decline. As a result, in just a month, AUD/NZD bears were able to win back more than 600 points.

The downward trend is primarily due to the uncorrelation of the Reserve Bank of Australia and Reserve Bank of New Zealand rates. The RBA in September reduced the pace of monetary policy tightening, while the New Zealand central bank showed a hawkish attitude. Actually, this is what the downtrend is based on: all other fundamental factors play a supporting role.

It is worth noting that rumors that the RBA will slow down in early autumn began to be actively discussed in the summer. The Australian central bank at the summer meetings began to voice soft hints – they say, of course, we have to fight inflation, but we are not going to ignore the side effects of tightening the monetary policy. Initially, the central bank removed from the text of the accompanying statement the mention of the termination of the emergency monetary support. Then the central bank focused its attention on the sustainability of the national economy. At the same time, the RBA stopped mentioning the need to return core inflation to the target range "within the next year." Instead of this formulation, it began to use a more streamlined phrase: "over time." That is, the central bank has freed itself from any specific time frame. The combination of these signals suggested that the RBA would not rush to quickly normalize monetary conditions.

As a result, these assumptions were confirmed: following the results of the September meeting, the RBA raised the rate by 25 points, while most traders expected a 50-point hike. In October, the central bank took a similar step, and in this case, the market was already ready for a similar outcome. Commenting on the results of the October meeting, RBA Governor Philip Lowe said that the Central Bank Board "considered it appropriate to raise rates at a slower pace." Obviously, at the next, last meeting of this year (which will be held in December), the RBA will also raise the rate by 25 points.

The RBNZ, in turn, solved the dilemma at the last meeting: whether to raise the OCR rate by 50 points or by 75? The choice was made in favor of the first option, but the very fact of such discussions supported the New Zealand dollar throughout the market, even against the aussie. To date, the OCR rate is at a 7-year high (3.5%, the RBA – 2.85%), but the RBNZ still says that "there is still a lot to do", as inflation remains at an unacceptably high level.

The penultimate meeting of the RBNZ took place on October 5, and on October 18, fresh data on CPI growth in the island state were published. To the disappointment of the central bank, inflation in the third quarter in New Zealand soared again, significantly exceeding forecast levels. Thus, the consumer price index grew by 2.2% in quarterly terms (with a forecast of 1.5% and the previous value of 1.7%), and jumped to 7.2% year-on-year, with a forecast of a slowdown to 6.5%.

Given such trends and previous statements by RBNZ representatives, we can assume that the New Zealand central bank will again solve the dilemma in December: will it raise the rate by 50 points or make a 75-point breakthrough? In the context of the AUD/NZD pair, it is also important to note that the RBNZ is not yet ready to slow down the pace of monetary policy tightening "even in words", while the RBA reduced the pace of rate hikes back in September.

Thus, the prevailing fundamental background contributes to a further decline in the AUD/NZD cross pair. The priority of the bearish scenario is also indicated by the technical picture: the pair continues to be between the middle and lower lines of the Bollinger Bands indicator on the daily chart, as well as under all the lines of the Ichimoku indicator, which shows a bearish Parade of Lines signal. It is advisable to use any corrective bursts to open short positions to the first support level of 1.0850 (the lower line of the Bollinger Bands indicator on the weekly chart).