Wednesday preview: Delta Air Lines results, RBNZ policy announcement due

(Sharecast News) - On an otherwise quiet day for UK corporate releases, oil giant Shell is due to release a first-quarter update on Wednesday, while the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will make its latest policy announcement overnight. In the US, earnings from Constellation Brands and Delta Air Lines will be in focus, along with the latest minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee.

Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said the minutes from the March FOMC meeting "are likely too stale to offer much by way of fresh guidance".

In Europe, German factory orders for February will be released, along with February eurozone retail sales figures and the HCOB eurozone construction PMI for March.

Also in focus will be the latest policy announcement from the RBNZ, which is widely expected to leave rates unchanged at 2.25%.

"Overnight, we expect the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) to keep its monetary policy unchanged in line with market pricing and consensus," said Danske Bank.

"Markets expect RBNZ to hike rates most likely in Q3 this year."

ING's Chris Turner said that as far as the RBNZ is concerned, very little tightening is priced in the first half of the year, with 65 basis points of hikes priced by the end of the year.

"RBNZ Governor Anna Breman has proved quite dovish in her communication so far, and in the absence of any new RBNZ forecasts tomorrow, consensus widely expects unchanged rates at 2.25% and probably little steer on future tightening," he said.

"Lacking the industrial commodities offered by Australia, the New Zealand dollar has substantially underperformed the Australian dollar this year. Barring a surprise hawkish shift at tomorrow's RBNZ press conference, this trend may well continue."