NZDUSD Steady As NFP Looms

The New Zealand Dollar (NZD) is steady against the US Dollar (USD) on Friday, ahead of the nonfarm payrolls release with the pair hovering around 0.6716. The technical bias remains bearish in the long run because of a Lower Low and Lower High on the daily chart.

Technical Analysis

As of this writing the pair is being traded around 0.6716. A support may be seen near 0.6675, the 61.8% fib level ahead of 0.6600, the psychological number and then 0.6428, the horizontal support area as demonstrated in our daily chart.

On the upside, the pair is likely to face a hurdle near 0.6746, the intraday high of yesterday ahead of 0.6781, the swing high of the last major upside rally and then 0.7000, a major psychological level in the long run. The technical bias will remain bearish as long as the 0.6781 resistance area is intact.

Nomura NFP Forecast

Analysts at Nomura sees today’s nonfarm readings somewhere around 180K. “Employment report: December produced a strong jobs report, with nonfarm payrolls growth near 300k, and the unemployment rate remaining low at 5.0%. Incoming data on labor markets in January point to job growth near-usual trend on the month. Weather in the first half of January was warmer than usual and the winter storm that affected the Northeast occurred after the BLS payroll survey reference week, so we are unlikely to see its effects on January’s payrolls numbers. Taking these together, we forecast that private payrolls added a net new 180k workers (Consensus: 180k), with a 5k increase in government workers, implying that total nonfarm payrolls will gain 185k jobs (Consensus: 190k),” they noted.

Trade Idea

Considering the overall technical and fundamental outlook, selling the pair around current levels could be a good strategy if we get a valid bearish reversal candle on the daily chart.