NZD The Laggard After Orr Speech

Narrow ranges have defined the session so far; NZD is bottom of the G10 pile, NZD/USD down around 10 pips. RBNZ Governor Orr spoke earlier and stressed that the Bank's strong view is to continue to reduce stimulus given the strong position of the NZ economy, Orr also noted that the Bank would have likely lifted the OCR yesterday in the absence of lockdown/COVID cases.

• AUD/USD is flat, giving back earlier gains after the release of COVID-19 case numbers from Victoria saw an uptick to 57 today from the mid-20s over the last couple of days. Markets look ahead to labour market data.
• USD/JPY is up 8 pips. there has been a lack of local news flow since Wednesday's Tokyo close. The Reuters Tankan manufacturing survey rose to 33 from 25 previously.
• Offshore yuan is broadly flat, USD/CNH sticking to its range from Wednesday's European and US sessions. As a reminder markets look to the PBOC's LPR announcement tomorrow.
• Markets continue to digest the FOMC minutes which revealed that participants "generally judged that the Committee's standard of "substantial further progress" toward the maximum-employment and inflation goals had not yet been met, particularly with respect to labor market conditions, and that risks to the economic outlook remained."
• Upcoming data includes Australia labour market data and weekly US labour market data.