Currency: Dollar drifts lower on poor data

The New Zealand dollar ended the business week with a retreat triggered by worse-than-expected retail sales data.

By 5pm the NZ dollar was buying US59.30c from US59.73c at 8am. It was still up from US59.16c at 5pm yesterday.

The seasonally adjusted volume of total retail sales fell a record 2.9 per cent in the March quarter.

The data was seen as a pointer to weak gross domestic product data, and as a reason for even lower interest rates. An International Monetary Fund review of New Zealand also said more rate cuts were needed.

The NZ dollar traded as low as US59.10c during the session.

"The weaker retail sales data here has been a feature of our session," said ANZ Bank chief foreign exchange dealer Murray Hindley.

There are not many statistics releases in the diary next week.

"We are pretty much going to be in the hands of US dollar movements and whether risk is on, or off the table," Mr Hindley said.

The NZ dollar was 56.85 yen by the local close from 56.56 yesterday but this as down on the 57.17 at 8am. It eased to 0.4346 euro from 0.4360 yesterday.

The currency was lower against the Australian dollar, buying A78.05c at 5pm from A78.57c yesterday, while the trade weighted index fell to 57.38 from 57.45.

Currency rates:

5pm today 5pm yesterday

NZ dlr/US dlr US59.30c US59.16c

NZ dlr/Aust dlr A78.05c A78.57c

NZ dlr/euro 0.4346 0.4360

NZ dlr/yen 56.85 56.56

NZ dlr/stg 38.92p 39.09p

NZ TWI 57.38 57.45

Aust dlr/US dlr 75.92c 75.32c

Euro/US dlr 1.3637 1.3572

US dlr/yen 95.92 95.53

- NZPA