KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar rose consistently throughout the day and ended its domestic session above US55c.
Dealers said the US dollar was weaker and this was the predominant trend in the market. The NZ dollar was little changed against the Australian dollar.
"The kiwi slowly dribbled higher on a weak US dollar across the board," said Jake Soanes, head of financial market sales at Westpac.
The NZ dollar was around its low of the day on US54.57c in early trading. By 5pm it was worth US55.35c, from US55.03c on Friday.
Mr Soanes said investors were selling the US dollar for technical reasons and this was expected to continue as a trend throughout the Christmas holiday period.
For that reason he as picking a rise to US58c over the holiday period in a technical correction.
Still, ANZ is predicting the NZ dollar will fall to below US45c next year as the New Zealand economy rebalances as investors continue to be risk averse and favour countries with current account surpluses.
There was little reaction to today's the Quarterly Survey of Manufacturing.
Against the Australian dollar the kiwi was A82.60c from A82.89c on Friday. Against the euro it was 0.4107 from 0.4108 on Friday, and against the Japanese currency it rose to 50.30 yen from 49.84 yen.
The trade weighted index was 54.72 from 54.54 on Friday.
Currency rates:
NZ dlr/US dlr US55.35 US55.03c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A82.60c A82.89c
NZ dlr/euro 0.4107 0.4108
NZ dlr/yen 50.30 49.84
NZ dlr/stg 36.82p 36.44p
NZ TWI 54.72 54.54
Aust dlr/US dlr US66.93 US66.30
Euro/US dlr 1.3470 1.3398
US dlr/yen 90.94 90.52
- NZPA
