FOREX-Dollar wavers as traders tire of 'headline ping-pong'

* Dollar's Trump bump runs out of puff
* Kiwi hits 4-month high as rate-cut expectations ebb
* Graphic: World FX rates in 2019 http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh

By Tom Westbrook
SINGAPORE, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The dollar wobbled on Thursday
as an earlier boost from upbeat trade comments by U.S. President
Donald Trump ran out of steam and investors remained on edge
over Sino-U.S. tensions.
In a fillip to sentiment overnight, Trump said talks to
resolve the damaging trade war with China were going "very
well". Bloomberg also reported that the two sides are moving
closer to an agreement, citing people familiar with the talks.
However, with no official reassurance from the Chinese on
Thursday, and only a day after Trump said a deal might not come
until after the 2020 presidential election, the recovery
promptly stalled in Asian trade.
"It's too soon to say whether it's a rebound or a dead-cat
bounce, that's the way I look at risk at the moment," said Matt
Simpson, a senior market analyst at Gain Capital in Singapore.
Movements in major currencies were modest. The safe-haven
Japanese yen JPY= steadied at 108.84 per dollar, while the
Swiss franc CHF= inched higher to 0.9879 per dollar.
The euro EUR= firmed marginally against the dollar to
$1.1084, which pushed the greenback down 0.1% against a basket
of currencies .DXY to 97.551.
The British pound crept back to the eight-month high hit
overnight as expectations firmed that Prime Minister Boris
Johnson would win a majority at next week's election.
The focus remained on trade news, or the lack of it, with
investors also looking ahead to non-farm payrolls data on Friday
as a possible source of further disappointment with the state of
the U.S. economy.
"I thought the markets had stopped playing headline ping-
pong on trade, but evidently not," said National Australia
Bank's head FX strategist, Ray Attrill. "Another day, another
reversal of what happened the previous day."

TRANS-TASMAN DIVERGENCE
Elsewhere, domestic factors moved the Antipodean currencies
in opposite directions. The Australian dollar AUD=D3 slipped 0.2% to $0.6838 after
softer-than-expected retail sales data. The kiwi NZD= climbed by the same margin to a four-month
high, after softer-than-expected banking reforms led to a
reduction in rate-cut expectations.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand lifted bank capital
requirements, but not as much as some investors had feared. The
long implementation time has also reduced expectations that
monetary easing might be needed to offset the hike's tightening
effects. "A softening in the proposals, combined with a more positive
domestic outlook...mean we are changing our Official Cash Rate
(OCR) call to only one further 25bp OCR cut, in May next year,
taking the OCR to 0.75%," ANZ analysts said in an emailed note.
The kiwi added 0.4% to $0.6555, its highest since August,
and has put on more than a cent this week as business sentiment
there has rebounded as well.
Against the Aussie, the kiwi has gained about 3% in a month
to stand at a four-month high of NZ$1.0457 per A$1 AUDNZD= .
The Canadian dollar CAD=D3 hit a one-month high of $1.3203
per greenback after the country's central bank held interest
rates steady and said there were signs the global economy was
stabilising. A rise in oil prices also supported the exporter's currency,
and lifted the Norwegian krone NOK= slightly to 9.1643 per
dollar. O/R