Global doubts knock kiwi

The New Zealand dollar fell as investors await more evidence of the pace of global growth, including Chinese manufacturing and US consumer confidence and durable goods orders.

The New Zealand dollar fell as investors await more evidence of the pace of global growth, including Chinese manufacturing and US consumer confidence and durable goods orders.

The kiwi fell to US81.60c at 5pm from US81.65c at 8am and US81.88c at the close of New York trading on Friday. The trade-weighted index decreased to 72.72 from 72.88.

Chinese manufacturing figures this week are expected to show declining activity in the world's second-biggest economy, after the HSBC Flash PMI, a lead indicator of factory activity, raised expectations of a harder than expected landing.

The Dollar Index, a measure of the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.5 per cent to 79.36 on Friday in New York after US home sales fell in February.

That sparked fears the US recovery may not be as embedded as previously thought after a string of upbeat data prompted traders to start betting on an earlier Federal Reserve rate hike than the end of 2014.

"US data momentum looks like it's turning lower, which should push the US dollar down," said Imre Speizer, market strategist at Westpac Banking.

"The pull-back last week looks like a correction on the prior rally and the kiwi looks like its multi-day trend is upwards."

Speizer said he still expects the kiwi dollar will decline on a multi-week basis. People are focusing on US and Chinese data, with the speed of America's recovery slowing and China's economic activity winding down.

The New Zealand dollar fell to A77.99c from A78.18c last week, and was little changed at 67.44 from 67.40.

It declined to €61.53c from €61.69c last week, and dropped to 51.54p from 51.59p.