KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar ended not far from where it started but during the session some games were played.
The NZ dollar was trading at US52.58c at 5pm from US52.32c at 8am and US52.37c yesterday.
Imre Speizer, senior market strategist at Westpac, said the currency was trading in a range between US52c and US53c.
The NZ dollar spiked higher in early afternoon trading when a large player from Asia tried to drive the currency higher to break it out of its recent range.
"Someone went around paying it up. It spiked, but didn't sustain the rise," he said.
"The market is over the US stimulus thing and mulling what next," he said.
December retail sales figures, due tomorrow, are awaited by market participants but after that there is only Producer Price Index data next week.
The NZ dollar was little changed against the European and Japanese currencies, buying 0.4076 euro and 47.37 yen at 5pm.
The kiwi was also unchanged against the Australian dollar at A80.10c by the local close from A80.05c yesterday. The trade weighted index was 53.05 at 5pm from 52.81 yesterday.
Currency rates:
5pm today 5pm yesterday
NZ dlr/US dlr US52.58c US52.37c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A80.10c A80.05c
NZ dlr/euro 0.4076 0.4066
NZ dlr/yen 47.37 47.33
NZ dlr/stg 36.60p 36.11p
NZ TWI 53.05 52.81
Aust dlr/US dlr 65.64c 65.44c
Euro/US dlr 1.2899 1.2885
US dlr/yen 90.08 90.37
- NZPA
