Currency: Dollar climbs over US64c

The New Zealand dollar rose today as investors regained their appetite for risk.

The NZ dollar was at US64.07c at 5pm today, up from US63.36c at 5pm yesterday.

Against the Australian currency, the NZ dollar was little changed at A80.65c, from A80.90c yesterday.

A comment by Finance Minister Bill English today that he would prefer the NZ dollar to be lower had little impact. It followed a comments by Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard yesterday that the country needed a persistently weak currency in coming years.

The NZ dollar had rallied about US two cents from the lows this week on US corporate earnings reports, said Derek Rankin of Rankin Treasury.

Strong earnings from Intel Corp and Goldman Sachs lifted hopes of a rebound in corporate profits, Reuters reported.

"Overnight the market was looking at US reporting to see whether or not it was going to give us some good economic news and it did," Mr Rankin said.

"The NZ dollar and Australian dollar are back in favour again."

The NZ dollar rose to 0.4578 euros from 0.4531 yesterday, and was little changed at 59.89 yen from 59.03 yesterday.

The trade weighted index rose to 60.49 from 59.94 yesterday.

- NZPA