KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar eased against its US counterpart overnight as the greenback managed to pull back from its slump.
Before its recovery the US dollar had hit a 23-year low against the Australian dollar yesterday, with the aussie climbing to above US90c.
For its part, the kiwi hit a week high against the greenback around 7.45pm yesterday, when Reuters data showed it buying US76.76c. By 8.30am today the NZ dollar had eased back from that level to US76.12c.
The greenback rose in quiet trade against most major currencies overnight as investors reassessed risk and bet that Friday's sell-off on a US payrolls report was overdone.
September jobs growth was the best since May and eased concern about an imminent US recession, but some dealers sold the greenback on concern the economy is not growing fast enough to prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting US interest rates further.
The overnight gains came as investors decided the jobs report indicated some vigour in the US economy.
Adding to US dollar strength was concern that the Group of Seven nations may address greenback weakness at their upcoming meeting, which could leave some investors who had been betting on the dollar's continued decline caught short.
Despite the strong recent performance by the Australian dollar, it has eased against the kiwi since early Saturday.
At that time the NZ dollar hit a 2-1/2 week low against the aussie around A84.55c. By 5pm yesterday it was just below A85c and by 8.30am today was up to A85.28c.
The NZ dollar did ease against the Japanese currency overnight to be buying 89.35 yen at 8.30am today, having hit a two-month high just below 90 yen about 12 hours earlier.
Against the euro, the kiwi edged up to 0.5420 at 8.30am today from 0.5416 at 5pm, while the trade weighted index eased to 71.77 from 71.88.
Reuters currency rates:
8.30am today 5pm yesterday
NZ dlr/US dlr US76.12c US76.54c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A85.28c A84.97c
NZ dlr/euro 0.5420 0.5416
NZ dlr/yen 89.35 89.66
NZ dlr/stg 37.40p 37.49p
NZ TWI 71.77 71.88
Australian dollar US89.25c US90.10c
Euro/US dollar 1.4043 1.4135
US dollar/yen 117.38 117.12
- NZPA
