NZ Dollar Falls As Most Asian Stock Markets Traded Lower

The New Zealand dollar weakened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Monday, as Asian stock markets are mostly lower on Monday following the negative cues from the Wall Street and European markets, as well as the tumble in crude oil prices Friday. Investors are in a cautious mode ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting later this week.

Crude oil futures retreated Friday, giving back strong gains from earlier in the week amid concerns that next week's OPEC meeting will fail to address the global supply glut.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund maintained its global growth projections for this year and 2018, and raised outlook for China.

Global output is forecast to grow by 3.5 percent in 2017 and 3.6 percent in 2018. The unchanged global growth projections mask somewhat different contributions at the country level, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook Update.

Last Friday, the NZ dollar showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the kiwi rose against the U.S. dollar, the yen, and the Australian dollar, it held steady against the euro.

In the Asian trading, the NZ dollar fell to a 4-day low of 82.44 against the yen, from Friday's closing value of 82.81. The kiwi may test support near the 80.00 region.

Against the euro and the U.S. dollar, the kiwi dropped to 1.5715 and 0.7426 from last week's closing quotes of 1.5640 and 0.7453, respectively. If the kiwi extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.60 against the euro and 0.72 against the greenback.

The kiwi dropped to 1.0669 against the Australian dollar from an early 10-day high of 1.0609. The currency is likely to find support near the 1.08 region.

In the scheduled events today, flash PMI reports from major European economies for July are due to be released later in the day.

In the New York session, Canada wholesale sales data for May, U.S. Markit's flash PMI reports for July and U.S. existing home sales data for June are slated for release.