Dollar enjoys bumpy ride, ends little changed

The New Zealand dollar was volatile this afternoon after Chinese financial data was released.

The NZ dollar rose to US74.39c around 3pm, before settling at US74.04c at 5pm from US74.06c at the same time yesterday.

BNZ currency strategist Mike Jones said the NZ dollar gained on the release of stronger than expected retail sales and industrial production numbers in China.

The suggestion of a strong Chinese economy led people to start buying both the NZ dollar and Australian dollar.

"We then saw the NZ dollar sell off. We received new loan data from China and that was quite a bit weaker than expected."

BNZ said the NZ dollar could possibly go up tomorrow after the third quarter retail sales data is released by Statistics New Zealand at 10.45am.

"The market is sort of expecting something fairly flat, so if things come out a little bit stronger, we may see a pop up in the kiwi dollar," said Mr Jones.

The NZ dollar was also little changed against other currencies compared to levels at 5pm yesterday.

At 5pm the NZ dollar was at 0.4941 euro, 66.30 yen, and A79.59c from 0.4943 euro, 66.58 yen and A79.73c at the same time yesterday. The trade weighted index was 65.90 at 5pm from 65.95 yesterday.

- NZPA