Wheeler’s Peashooter Finds Its Mark as Kiwi Slumps: Currencies
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For a central banker armed with what government officials call a peashooter, New Zealand’s Graeme Wheeler is proving to be a good shot.
Since the Reserve Bank governor said on May 8 that he was intervening in the currency market to weaken the local dollar, after it gained as much as 15 percent versus the greenback from last year’s low, it has declined about 7 percent. That’s the second-biggest drop among Group of 10 currencies after the 8.1 percent slide in Australia’s dollar. Speculators have pared bullish bets on the kiwi to the least since July as analysts cut their year-end forecasts to the lowest in four months.