KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar had a light workout inside a narrow range today ahead of key economic data later in the week.
By 5pm the kiwi was buying US76.21c from US76.12c at 8am, the same as late on Friday afternoon.
Dealers said the local currency traded in a narrow range from just above the US76c figure to US76.39c during the day.
There are three key economic releases this week with the Westpac McDermott Miller consumer confidence survey on Wednesday, current account on Thursday and GDP on Friday.
Westpac said inflation remains a concern globally so a Federal Reserve meeting on Thursday was also being watched closely.
"But with the US jobs market likely heading in the wrong direction for some time to come, and signs of another round of banking sector woes in the US, it's questionable whether the Fed will be able to act on its inflationary concern anytime soon," Westpac said in a commentary.
The US dollar fell broadly over the weekend as fears of further write-downs in the US financial sector reinforced the view that the Fed can't tighten monetary policy to fight inflation.
That left the New Zealand dollar in wait-and-see mode until policy becomes clearer internationally and the state of the domestic economy was revealed in the statistics.
Against the Australian dollar, the kiwi was buying A79.77c (A80.07c on Friday), while against the yen it eased to 81.91 from 82.14 on Friday. The trade weighted index was 68.17 at 5pm today from 68.33.
Reuters currency rates:
NZ dlr/US dlr US76.21c US76.12c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A79.77c A80.07c
NZ dlr/euro 0.4884 0.4908
NZ dlr/yen 81.91 82.14
NZ dlr/stg 38.65p 38.62p
NZ TWI 68.17 68.33
Australian dollar US95.57c US95.04c
Euro/US dollar 1.5611 1.5511
US dollar/yen 107.41 107.89
- NZPA
