FX.co ★ New Zealand Services Sector Falls Into Contraction

The services sector in New Zealand slipped into contraction territory in April, BusinessNZ said on Monday with a Performance of Services Index score of 49.8.

That's down from the downwardly revised 53.8 reading in March (originally 54.4) and it moves beneath the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.

Among the individual components, sales (45.1), employment (49.9) and new orders (49.1) contracted, while supplier deliveries (51.1) and stocks (57.2) expanded.

"While April's result denotes only a tiny fraction of contraction, the PSI has certainly slowed a lot, in the space of a month, to the point of a pause," BNZ Senior Economist Craig Ebert said.