SYDNEY, April 22 Reuters The Australian and New Zealand dollars hovered near recent onemonth highs on Thursday with major commoditylinked currencies getting a boost from a hawkish tilt by the Bank of Canada which expects to start tightening policy next year.
The BoC signalled it could start hiking interest rates in late2022, providing a lift to the Canadian dollar, with small spillovers to other commodity currencies such as the Aussie and the kiwi dollars.
The Australian dollar was last at 0.7750, not far from a onemonth high of 0.7816 reached earlier this week.
Next stop is around 0.7820 levels with solid chart support seen around 0.7720 region.
The New Zealand dollar was flat at 0.7212 after going as high as 0.7227 on Tuesday, a level not seen since March 18.
The hawkish tilt by the Bank of Canada BoC was the biggest event overnight, Tapas Strickland, economist at the National Australia Bank, wrote in a morning note.
The key question for markets is does the BoC statement prove to be a watershed moment for central banks in which they revert back to outcomesbased guidance as the data improves and away from calendarbased guidance that was calibrated in the depths of the pandemic?
The BoC held its overnight rate at 0.25 on Wednesday and signalled it could start raising rates late next year as it sharply boosted its outlook for the Canadian economy and reduced the scope of its bond buying program. The Canadian dollar jumped 0.8.
Investor attention will next be on…