NZ dollar largely unchanged

The New Zealand dollar traded in a fairly narrow range today as investors digested developments in global financial stories and continued to be generally more cautious about risk.

Traders were again wary of risk after China's decision on Friday to further raise commercial banks' reserve requirements hurt equity markets and provided safe-haven support to the US dollar.

The NZ dollar was US69.77c at 5pm from US69.62c at 8am US69.73c at 5pm Friday.

The euro continues to trade around nine-month lows against the dollar on worries about the impact of debt-laden Greece.

"Globally, we await details from tonight's Eurozone's meeting on what measures will be taken to support Greece, having heard only assurances so far," Westpac said in a commentary.

Economic releases locally this week are regarded as minor.

Last week the NZ dollar bounced as high as US70.25c. Westpac currently regards any rise as a corrective bounce to sell into, citing global risk sentiment and "less supportive New Zealand economic fundamentals" as pressures on the currency.

Against the Australian dollar, the NZ dollar was A78.55c at 5pm, from A78.39c at the same time on Friday, and 0.5124 euro from 0.5100 on Friday.

It was 62.90 yen from 62.53 yen last week. The trade-weighted index was 64.71 from 64.53 on Friday.

- NZPA