NZ jobs figures very poor; Kiwi tumbles after head fake

The New Zealand Dollar is selling off across the board. What appeared to be initially some surprisingly upbeat numbers through a reduction in the unemployment rate in New Zealand to 6.9% vs 7.1% expected in the fourth quarter, was simply too good to be true, and speculators have been faced with aggressive selling after realizing that the low unemployment was caused by low participation levels, down to 67.2% v 68.5% exp. Additionally, employment growth stood at -1% QoQ, well below the 0.4% rise expected. The NZDUSD, after a brief spike to 0.8446, is now at session lows around 0.8340.