KEY POINTS:
After falling 3c to near US74c against the greenback between lunchtime Thursday and midnight Friday, the New Zealand dollar has since stabilised around the US74.60c level.
Around 8.15am today the kiwi was buying US74.66c, having been at US74.45c at 5pm on Friday.
The trough near US74c at midnight Friday was the kiwi's lowest point against the US currency since the start of June.
The ANZ bank said today that selling pressures had been relentless on the NZ dollar until the US74c support level was tested.
Reports of central banks working overtime had done nothing to allay fears in the market of a global credit crunch, ANZ said.
Further pressure on the kiwi was only relieved when the Dow Jones industrial average in the US recovered the bulk of the day's losses to close just marginally lower than Thursday.
The yen slipped against both the greenback and the euro after the US Federal Reserve injected cash into the banking system three times on Friday, easing US stock market losses and calming anxious financial markets.
Global central banks, including the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, added more than US$300 billion ($404.6 billion) of extra cash to the banking system over the last 48 hours of last week to stabilise credit markets.
ANZ expected support for the NZ dollar to hold at US74c today as the local market awaited developments from offshore, particularly in the US.
Around 8.15am today the kiwi was buying 0.5451 euro, almost the same as at 5pm Friday, having bottomed around 0.5415 on Friday evening, the lowest in more than two months.
The kiwi was also buying A88.31c against the Australian dollar this morning, little different than on Friday evening, having briefly plunged to its lowest level in three months below A87.80c around 2pm Friday.
Against the yen, the NZ dollar was at 88.36 around 8.15am, up from 87.88 at 5pm on Friday. The kiwi troughed at 86.75 yen around midnight Friday.
- NZPA
