KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar appeared to be treading water after recovering from a low of US79.07c in offshore trade on Friday night.
Today the kiwi closed around opening levels at US79.46c, similar to Friday's close and a rebound from a morning dip of US79.15c.
"It seems to be having trouble breaking much lower than US79.20c at the moment," ANZ Institutional Bank technical analyst Mark Elliott said.
"Overall, it still looks like a consolidation before another move higher."
The kiwi is expected to continue taking its cue this week from US equities as the US dollar continues to weaken against all its main trading partners.
Weak US jobs data fuelled fresh recessionary fears and a fall on Wall St on Friday, sending the greenback to an eight year low against the yen of 101.40 before it recovered to around 102.22 yen today.
It also fell to a record low against the euro of US$1.5465 before creeping up to US$1.5384.
"Oil's up, gold's up, all these moves have one thing in common: a debasement of the denominator currency, and that is the US dollar," Mr Elliott said.
The ANZ said that with no clear signs that credit markets were on the mend, risk averse play would intensify.
The kiwi also cribbed slightly lower against the Australian dollar, closing at A85.41c from A85.63c on Friday.
Mr Elliott said he thought anything above A86.50c "looks to be a short" and that the kiwi-aussie cross could lose a cent into the A84c level.
The kiwi stood at 0.5166 euro (from 0.5172 on Friday) and at 81.24 yen (81.70 yen). The trade weighted index was lower at 71.02 (71.21).
Today figures from Quotable Value showed house price growth had eased for the sixth straight month in February .
Other data out this week includes terms of trade on Tuesday, retail sales on Thursday and manufacturing numbers on Friday.
Currency rates:
NZ dlr/US dlr US79.46c US79.50c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A85.41c A85.63c
NZ dlr/euro 0.5166 0.5172
NZ dlr/yen 81.24 81.70
NZ dlr/stg 39.36p 39.52p
NZ TWI 71.02 71.21
Australian dollar US93.03 US92.83
Euro/US dollar 1.5383 1.5370
US dollar/yen 102.24 102.79
- NZPA
