NZD/USD sticks to modest recovery gains above 0.5900, upside potential seems limited

• NZD/USD catches some bids during the Asian session amid subdued USD price action.
• Bets for one more Fed rate hike in 2023 favour the USD bulls and should cap the major.
• China's economic woes further warrant caution before confirming a bottom for the pair.

The NZD/USD pair continues to show some resilience below the 0.5900 mark and attracts some buying during the Asian session on Monday. Spot prices steadily climb to the 0.5920-0.5925 region and for now, seem to have snapped a two-day losing streak to the lowest level since November 2022 touched on Friday, though any meaningful appreciating move still seems elusive.

The US Dollar (USD) kicks off the new week on a subdued note and consolidates its recent gains to a nearly three-week top, which, in turn, prompts traders to lighten their bearish bets around the NZD/USD pair. The near-term bias, meanwhile, remains tilted in favour of the USD bulls in the wake of firming expectations for one more 25 bps rate hike by the Federal Reserve (Fed) in 2023. The bets were reaffirmed by Fed Chair Jerome Powell's hawkish remarks at the Jackson Hole Symposium on Friday.

In fact, Powell said that the US central bank may need to raise interest rates further to cool still-too-high inflation and added that policymakers would proceed carefully as they decide whether to tighten further or to hold the policy rate constant. This, in turn, remains supportive of elevated US Treasury bond yields and suggests that the path of least resistance for the buck is to the upside. Apart from this, China's economic woes should contribute to capping gains for antipodean currencies, including the Kiwi.

Hence, it will be prudent to wait for strong follow-through buying before confirming that the NZD/USD pair has bottomed out in the near term and positioning for any further gains. That said, repeated failures to find acceptance below the 0.5900 round figure warrant some caution for bearish traders in the absence of any relevant market-moving economic releases on Monday. That said, the attempted intraday recovery might still be seen as a selling opportunity and runs the risk of fizzling out rather quickly.

Technical levels to watch