By Alex Ho
Investing.com - The New Zealand dollar gained almost 1% against its U.S. counterpart on Wednesday in Asia after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) left interest rates unchanged as expected and said forecasts showed no chance of a cut this year.
The NZD/USD pair last traded at 0.6456 by 12:05 AM ET (04:05 GMT), up 0.9%.
Meanwhile, the AUD/USD pair traded 0.2% higher at 0.6728 as the Westpac Consumer Sentiment Index jumped by 2.3% to 95.5 in February. In January, the index had fallen by 1.8% to 93.4. Economists had forecast a more modest 1.4% rise.
The U.S. dollar index inched up 0.1% to 98.657. Overnight, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed is watching the coronavirus impact carefully, without hinting that any imminent action was needed, claiming he wanted to "resist the temptation to speculate" about the potential disruptions from the outbreak.
"'What will be the effects on the U.S. economy?' 'Will they be persistent?' 'Will they be material?' That’s really the question," Powell said.
On the data front, the U.S. Labor Department's latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report, a measure of labor demand, showed job openings in January fell to about 6.43 million, missing expectations of 7 million.
The EUR/USD pair was little changed at 1.0911. Industrial production figures are due out of the Eurozone later today.
The USD/CNY pair was also near flat at 6.9626. On the coronavirus front, China said the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose to 1,113 as of Feb. 11, with 97 additional fatalities reported. Confirmed cases of the disease in mainland China rose to 44,653.