NZD/USD opened a little higher on Monday after the election over the weekend resulted in a change of government, as expected. Christopher Luxon led the centre-right party to the win, with 39% of the vote. The opposition Labour party clinched 27%. Luxon will govern with the support of minor parties.

NZD/USD has traded up from its late Friday level around 0.5885 to a high just over 0.5925. AUD/USD was dragged up a little also.

USD/JPY is not a lot changed on the session, circa 149.49 as I post.

EUR/USD and GBP/USD are up a little on the session with no news of impact for these.

From China we once again got a heavy USD/CNY reference rate setting, and once again on the 7.17 big figure and around 1300 points lower than the modelled estimate.

Also from China today was this month’s Medium-term Lending Facility (MLF), with the largest net injection since December 2020 at an unchanged rate of 2.5% (2.5% was expected).

Markets remain on tenterhooks watching Middle East developments. There was mixed messaging from Iran over Israel’s imminent ground incursion into Gaza. As I post the news is crossing of a 5 hour humanitarian ceasefire to allow foreigners to exit and humanitarian aid to enter Gaza via the Egypt border. Its to begin at 9am local through to 2pm.

Oil didn't do a lot here:

oil wti Monday, 16 October 2023