Another year high for Kiwi dollar

The New Zealand dollar pushed up to another one-year high against a broadly weaker greenback.

The kiwi peaked around US70.85c early on Saturday, from US70.42c at 5pm on Friday, and by 8am today was buying US70.54c.

The US dollar slipped against a basket of currencies, touching a nearly one-year low at one point.

Prospects for economic recovery and low US borrowing rates continued to encourage investors to move cash out of the greenback into riskier assets in other currencies.

At the same time, the yen firmed broadly as a pullback in Wall Street shares and a drop in oil prices negated upbeat US consumer sentiment, rekindling safe-haven demand for the Japanese currency.

The NZ dollar slipped to 63.74 yen at 8am today from 64.29 at 5pm on Friday.

The kiwi edged up against the European and Australian currencies, to 0.4832 euro at today's local open from 0.4820, and to A81.66c from A81.46c at Friday's local close.

The trade weighted index lifted to 64.26 at 8am today from 64.21 at 5pm on Friday.

ANZ said the US dollar's weakness was reflected in the fact that the NZ dollar was almost 20 per cent above post-float averages against the greenback, while on a TWI basis it was closer to 6 per cent.

With the Reserve Bank resigned to the fact it could not have much influence on the NZ dollar, the prospect of further grinds higher by the kiwi remained.

- NZPA