As expected the RBNZ has left interest rates unchanged at their monthly meeting while adding further stimulus measures.

The key point of interest has been the new funding facility setup to give cheap loans to banks and other lenders in a bid to stimulate the lending environment and boost spending.

This is something we have been seeing elsewhere and goes along with their other $100 billion stimulus measures.

The bank said that it expects to see ongoing weakness in jobs and this is a key part of the equation that they are trying to address, while obviously trying to boost inflation which is likely to be lagging for some time.

The other key point is that they are prepared to lower the OCR to provide additional stimulus if required, which could mean negative rates which has been speculated on in the past.

NZD/USD Response

So far the NZD/USD is basically unchanged on the release and given that this was all basically outlined in advanced is why that is the case.

Looking to the charts now and we can see that price is above the key support level of 0.6800 and while that number is holding up well, we can remain bullish.

There is a tight little area of consolidation that is holding together and that is likely to be useful as an area to key off.

A break above the highs is a great long trigger for me and I would say a break of support is very bearish.

The NZD/USD ran higher on the back of the vaccine news and so far has been holding those gains along with other key risk-on assets.