Currency: Dollar mixed after overnight plunge

The New Zealand dollar was mixed today after plunging on Wednesday night when investors took profits in higher-yielding but riskier currencies.

After reaching its highest level in almost eight months early yesterday, around US65.95c, the NZ dollar fell to around US62.75c at about 6.30am today.

In its domestic session today it recovered to US63.75c before drifting off to US62.97c at 5pm, which compared with US65.47c at the same time yesterday.

Its performance in offshore markets tonight is being awaited with interest.

Westpac NZ senior market strategist Imre Speizer said the market had built up long positions during the recent rally.

"There was a lot of speculative buying over the last couple of months. Too many people were holding too much kiwi and everyone rushed for the door at once," he said.

The US dollar has also risen off 2009 lows on comments from Asian monetary officials. While a slide in Wall Street reduced demand for risky currencies.

Against its Australian counterpart the NZ dollar was A78.70c from A79.30c at the same time yesterday.

The NZ dollar fell against the European and Japanese currencies to 0.4447 euro at 5pm from 0.4572 yesterday, and to 60.56 yen from 62.56. The trade weighted index was 59.44 from 61.07.

Currency rates:

NZ dlr/US dlr US62.97c US65.47c

NZ dlr/Aust dlr A78.70c A79.30c

NZ dlr/euro 0.4447 0.4572

NZ dlr/yen 60.56 62.56

NZ dlr/stg 38.81p 39.40p

NZ TWI 59.44 61.07

Aust dlr/US dlr 79.96c 82.56c

Euro/US dlr 1.4155 1.4320

US dlr/yen 96.16 95.60

- NZPA