Currency: Dollar little changed

The New Zealand dollar was little changed today, reflecting a hesitancy about the direction of both the global economy and financial markets.

By 5pm the NZ dollar was buying US62.96c from US62.99c at 8am. It was US62.76c at 5pm yesterday.

The NZ dollar rose against the US dollar and the Australian dollar during the overnight session on Thursday.

BNZ Capital senior strategist Danica Hampton said that just when it might have been thought lower levels were in store for the NZ dollar, it had traded right back into the middle of very familiar ranges.

But some shine had come off the NZ dollar this week as a more sombre, and realistic, assessment of global growth prospects caused investors to have less appetite for risky currencies, she said.

Investors are looking forward to some key data next week on the direction of the New Zealand economy.

Retail trade data for May is due on Monday and the Consumer Price Index for the June quarter is due on Thursday.

ANZ economists said today that inflation pressures were undoubtedly easing.

Westpac economists agreed, and said that as a result the Reserve Bank of New Zealand would be able to keep its official cash rate low for some time.

The NZ dollar rose to A80.40c at 5pm from A80.27c at the same time yesterday. It was down against the European currency to 0.4498 euro at 5pm from 0.4515 yesterday, and was unchanged against the Japanese currency at 58.50 yen.

The trade weighted index was 59.56 at 5pm from 59.58 at the same time yesterday.

Currency rates:

5pm today 5pm yesterday

NZ dlr/US dlr US62.96c US62.76c

NZ dlr/Aust dlr A80.40c A80.27c

NZ dlr/euro 0.4498 0.4515

NZ dlr/yen 58.50 58.50

NZ dlr/stg 38.57p 38.99p

NZ TWI 59.56 59.58

Aust dlr/US dlr 78.26c 78.17c

Euro/US dlr 1.3984 1.3906

US dlr/yen 92.99 93.20

- NZPA