New Zealand’s fourth-quarter CPI is expected to hold at 3.0% year-on-year, slightly above the RBNZ’s projection and potentially reinforcing hawkish speculation, ING's FX analyst Francesco Pesole notes.

NZD supported, preference seen in crosses

"In New Zealand, CPI data for 4Q is released tonight. Expectations are for a 3.0% YoY unchanged headline print, and while our model does suggest some downside risks, we must admit that consensus has had a strong track record for this specific release in the past couple of years."

"That would be 0.3% above the RBNZ projection and a hawkish signal. As usual, non-tradable inflation remains closely watched too and is expected to rise 0.5% QoQ vs the central bank’s 0.4% projection."

"A consensus print should keep hawkish speculation in the NZD swap curve alive and NZD supported. We prefer NZD in the crosses rather than versus USD in the near term."