NZD/USD struggles for clear direction around 0.6800 during early Friday morning in Asia, after stepping back from the weekly top the previous day. The Kiwi pair dropped for the most in a week on Thursday as risk appetite soured amid a light calendar. That said, the quote’s latest performance could be linked to the market’s cautious mood ahead of the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) for November.

US Initial Jobless Claims dropped to the lowest levels since 1969, 184K versus 215K expected and 227K forecast, raising odds of the faster tapering by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) ahead of today’s key inflation data and the next week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. China’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped the most since August 2020, by 2.3% YoY and 0.4% MoM in November whereas the Producer Price Index (PPI) crossed 12.6% forecasts to arrive at 12.9% YoY in November, easing from a 26-year high posted the last month.

At home, NZ Business PMI eased below 56.7 market consensus and 54.3 previous readings to 50.6 while Electronic Card Retail Sales recovered to +2.9% YoY from -7.6% prior but eased on MoM to 9.6% from 10.0% printed in October.

Above all, the market’s indecision ahead of the key US inflation data and the next week’s super-pack central bank actions portray a risk-off mood and challenge the NZD/USD prices.

Amid these plays, Wall Street benchmarks closed in the red while the US 10-year Treasury yields drops 1.2 basis points to 1.497% while gold and crude prices also weakened.

Looking forward, a lack of major data/events will keep NZD/USD traders at the mercy of the US CPI.