Kiwi slides against US$

Photo / Supplied

The New Zealand dollar continued sliding against the greenback, a slump which began after it spiked to US81.71c on Friday night.

Falling through the weekend, it rallied briefly early yesterday but was down to US80.24c at 5pm, compared with US81.31c at the same time on Friday.

The New Zealand dollar and its Australian counterpart were both the victims of concerns about Greece's debt woes and weak equities weighed on risk trades.

NZ currency strategist Mike Burrowes said the NZ dollar's rollercoaster ride was also cut back as risk sentiment was hit by further concerns about the European debt saga.

Despite that, the NZ dollar held up better against the safe havens of the Swiss franc, Japanese yen and US dollar than any of the other major currencies, he said.

The resilience of the NZ dollar had been a consistent theme during the past week, with a recent rise in New Zealand interest rate differentials likely to be a factor.

The Aussie fell to 11-week lows against the greenback, while the NZ dollar lost a full US cent from late New York levels to dip as low as US80.10c at lunchtime, before consolidating later in the afternoon.

A lower trade balance than had been expected for New Zealand in May helped to bring the annual surplus down toward $1 billion.

The kiwi was also down to A77.05c at 5pm against the Australian dollar, which was A77.18c on Friday. It lost ground against the euro, trading at €0.5682 at 5pm, from €0.5703 at the start of the weekend.

- NZPA