KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar has slipped against the greenback, which gained broadly as traders thought the United States currency's slump last week may have been overdone.
The US dollar jumped against the euro, posting its biggest daily gain in almost two months on Friday, but in Asia today it retreated slightly. By 5pm the NZ dollar was buying US57.60c, down from US58.25c at the same time on Friday. The range on the day was US57.44c and US57.90c.
It is a thin pre-Christmas market so news that the annual current account deficit was $15.5 billion, or 8.6 per cent of gross domestic product, did not set the market on fire.
"The bigger number is due for release tomorrow," said Murray Hindley, ANZ Institutional Bank chief foreign exchange.
Gross Domestic Product data due tomorrow is expected to show the economy contracted by 0.5 per cent in the September quarter, according to Reuters.
New Zealand has been in recession since the start of the year.
But Mr Hindley said both the GDP and current account data were backward looking.
The NZ dollar was little changed against its trans-Tasman counterpart at A84.60c by 5pm today from A84.30c on Friday.
Against the euro it was 0.4120 from 0.4077 on Friday. The kiwi was at 51.90 yen at the local close from 51.95 on Friday. The trade weighted index was 56.20 at 5pm from 56.17 at 5pm Friday.
Currency rates:
NZ dlr/US dlr US57.60c US58.25c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr
A84.60c A84.30c
NZ dlr/euro 0.4120 0.4077
NZ dlr/yen 51.90 51.95
NZ dlr/stg 38.65p 38.40p
NZ TWI 56.20 56.17
Aust dlr/US dlr US68.10 US69.10
Euro/US dlr 1.3984 1.4281
US dlr/yen 90.11 89.22
- NZPA
