Currency: Dollar closes higher after being well bid on talk of Uridashi

The New Zealand dollar strengthened throughout in today's session as more talk swirled around the market about a possible Japanese retail bond issue, a broker said.

At 5pm, the kiwi was fetching US62.51c (from US61.87c at 5pm yesterday), having traded between US62.05c and US62.60c.

The Australian dollar was at US71.12c (US70.75c).

Westpac chief currency dealer Basil Payn said the kiwi was well bid throughout today's session.

"Basically, there's been buying out of Japan -- more stories about uridashi issues," Mr Payn told NZPA today.

Uridashis are bonds sold to Japanese retail investors but denominated in currencies other than yen.

"A couple of (Japanese) banks have come out with buy kiwi-US recommendations, or buy kiwi-Canadian dollar recommendations," he said.

The US dollar had been weak against the euro and the aussie all day, which had helped the kiwi push higher on reasonable support.

Several brokers spoken to by NZPA said today's Government budget had no effect on the New Zealand dollar.

Meanwhile, the greenback was buying 111.45 yen (111.67), and the euro was buying US$1.2150 (US$1.2096).

On the crosses, the kiwi was buying A87.90c (A87.45c), 34.34 British pence (34.17), 69.69 yen (69.09), 0.7921 Swiss francs (0.7874), and 0.5146 euros (0.5115).

The trade-weighted index was at 63.70 (63.19), while the monetary conditions index was at plus 445 (404).

On the money market, 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 5.98 per cent, February 2006 bonds were at 5.87 per cent (5.91), July 2009s were at 6.06 per cent (6.11) and April 2013s were unchanged at 6.20 per cent.

- NZPA