KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar firmed after a Friday night rally on Wall St increased investor appetite for riskier, high-yielding currencies.
The kiwi dollar started the day with a stronger tone and ended the day up nearly a US cent from Friday at US76.54c (compared with US75.61c). But it fell short of last week's seven-week high of US76.70c.
Today's volumes were relatively light, with the Japanese market closed for a public holiday and the US market closed for a holiday tonight.
Dealers said the sentiment towards carry trade was boosted by record highs on the Dow Jones and S&P index on solid employment reports.
However, the US dollar was heavily sold off again on dampened hopes of an interest rate cut.
That pushed the Australian dollar to fresh 23-year highs, and the kiwi moved higher in tandem, Westpac currency strategist Michael Gordon said.
The Australian dollar peaked at US90.25c, closing at US90.10c (US88.87c), which kept the kiwi-aussie cross in a narrow trading range closing at A84.97c (A85.09c).
The kiwi also firmed against other trading partners, hitting 89.66 against the yen (88.05 yen) and 0.5416 against the euro (0.5348 euro).
Mr Gordon said overnight investors would be keeping a watch on the outcome of a meeting of European finance ministers and whether they would "send a message that the euro is overvalued".
The next key pieces of local data will be a quarterly business opinion survey released tomorrow and August retail sales data on Friday.
Reuters currency rates
(5pm today 5pm Friday)
NZ dlr/US dlr US76.54c US75.61c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A84.97c A85.09c
NZ dlr/euro 0.5416 0.5348
NZ dlr/yen 89.66 88.05
NZ dlr/stg 37.49p 37.08p
NZ TWI 71.88 71.12
Australian dollar US90.10c US88.87c
Euro/US dollar 1.4135 1.4139
US dollar/yen 117.12 116.45
- NZPA
