New Zealand dollar rises on strong jobs data
The New Zealand dollar rose against most of its peers on Wednesday, lifted by strong jobs data.
The New Zealand Department of Labour revealed that the employment change index rose by 0.6% in April, beating forecasts of 0.3%.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.7% in April, beating forecasts to hold at 4.9% unchanged.
While ADB data showed today that the US private sector added 742K new jobs in April, the largest monthly rise since September, missing forecasts of 872K.
New Zealand is one of the few countries that have been successful in containing the coronavirus outbreak, with zero new cases or deaths reported during the recent period.
As of 16:17 GMT, NZD/USD rose 0.9% to 0.7211, after hitting a high of 0.7219 and a low of 0.7143.
US service sector slows in April
Data showed on Wednesday that the US service sector's growth slowed down in the past month.
The Institute for Supply Management showed that the US services PMI fell to 62.7 points in April from 63.7 points in March, lower than forecasts of 64.2 points.
US crude inventories fall nearly 8 million barrels
The US Energy Information Administration reported today that crude inventories fell 8 million barrels to 485.1 million during the past week, while analysts forecast a drop by 3.9 million barrels.
Gasoline stocks rose 700K to 235.8 million barrels, and distillate stocks fell 2.9 million to 136.2 million barrels.
While the American Petroleum Institute (API) revealed yesterday in preliminary data that the US crude inventories fell 7.7 million barrels during the same period.
US stocks edge lower despite upbeat data
Most of the US stock indices edged lower on Wednesday, despite the release of upbeat economic data and a rebound in the tech sector.
Major tech shares fell yesterday, but recovered partially today, and turned higher.
ADB data showed today that the US private sector added 742K new jobs in April, the largest monthly rise since September, missing forecasts of 872K.
The data comes two days ahead of the US Labor Department's monthly jobs report for April.
As for stocks, Dow Jones fell 0.1% or 44 points to 34,083 as of 14:07 GMT, Nasdaq fell 0.1% or 3 points to 13629, and S&P 500 rose 0.1% or 3 points to 4,169.