Currency: Dollar stays in US56c range

The New Zealand dollar traded in a narrow range today and headed lower against the US greenback, despite stronger building consent data.

At 8am today the kiwi was buying US56.94c, down from US57.57c at 5pm on Friday. Today it reached back up to a high of US56.98c before dribbling down throughout the day to be worth US56.46c at 5pm.

Building consent figures for February improved from January's deep hole, but remained low, according to Statistics NZ figures released today.

Seasonally adjusted, the total number of new houses was up 12 per cent in February after falling 13 per cent in January.

The stats were stronger than expected but with a weaker euro both Australian and New Zealand dollar suffered, said Murray Hindley, ANZ Institutional Bank chief foreign exchange dealer.

Investors were flocking to the US dollar.

"Risk is back off the table, I think, as everyone looks to see what comes out of the G20 meeting."

Leaders of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations meet on April 2 and the market will be watching to see what measures they discuss to fight the global economic crisis.

The NZD will also take its cues from further external data this week. Australian retail sales are expected on Wednesday and US non-farm payroll data is out on Friday, which measures the strength of the US labour market.

When the NFP rates are lower than expected it causes selling of the US dollar on the belief it is weakening.

Meanwhile, against the Australian dollar the kiwi was down slightly to A82.06c at 5pm, from A82.19c on Friday.

It was worth 0.4253 euro, up from 0.4244, and down to 55.18 Japanese yen from 56.60. The kiwi was also down against the British pound to 39.61p from 39.75p. The trade weighted index dropped to 56.59 from 57.15.

In overseas exchanges, the US dollar pushed higher against other major currencies on Monday, propelled by the euro's losses sparked by a policy maker suggesting fiscal irresponsibility in the region could put the single currency at risk.

The euro posted its biggest one-day fall against the dollar in two months on Friday after Germany's finance minister said it could one day face trouble in terms of stability and credibility if the euro zone's fiscal responsibility pact was not taken seriously.

The euro slipped 0.3 per cent to $1.3256 after shedding more than 1.5 per cent on Friday as weaker-than-expected euro zone industrial orders and German inflation data fanned concerns.

The euro was flat at 130.18 yen after dropping more than 2.5 per cent in the previous session.

The dollar was 0.3 per cent higher at 98.23 yen, after falling nearly 1 per cent on Friday, but was still within sight of this month's four-month high at 99.69 yen.

Currency rates:

5pm today 5pm Friday

NZ dlr/US dlr US56.46c US57.57c

NZ dlr/Aust dlr A82.06c A82.19c

NZ dlr/euro 0.4253 0.4244

NZ dlr/yen 55.18 56.60

NZ dlr/stg 39.61p 39.75p

NZ TWI 56.59 57.15

Aust dlr/US dl 68.75c 70.05c

Euro/US dlr 1.3269 1.3567

US dlr/yen 97.79 98.34

- NZPA