Dollar climbs over US70c, eases back

The New Zealand dollar rose against sterling along with other currencies, but weakened from its best levels of the day against the greenback.

The NZ dollar was at US69.86c at 5pm from US69.84c at 8am and US69.37c at 5pm on Friday.

It firmed above US70c during the morning but eased on reports that growth in China's manufacturing slowed in February.

"That saw the euro and everything sold off," one dealer said.

Sterling was volatile today on reports that American International Group is negotiating to sell its Asian life insurance business to UK-based Prudential Plc for as much as US$35 billion ($48.52 billion). If the deal goes through the buyer would have to sell sterling to buy US dollars.

Sterling was also under pressure after a UK political poll suggested a hung parliament .

Sterling fell to a nine-month low against the US dollar and the NZ dollar rose to 46.05p at 5pm, a two-month high, from 45.41p on Friday.

The market is also waiting for a Reserve Bank of Australia decision on interest rates tomorrow.

Economists speculated today that Australia was facing lower than expected December quarter growth figures this week, following poorer than expected current account and business indicators data.

The NZ dollar rose to 0.5130 euro at 5pm from 0.5106 at the same time on Friday, and up to 62.20 yen from 61.96.

Against the Australian dollar, the NZ dollar slipped to A77.80c at 5pm from A77.96c at Friday's local close, while the trade weighted index was up to 64.66 from 64.37.

- NZPA