Currency: Dollar little changed

The New Zealand dollar was slightly firmer today as market attention turned to next week's interest rate decision by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

Around 5pm the kiwi was buying US56.20c, little changed from US56.09c at the open. It climbed from US55.73c at 5pm yesterday.

Currency strategists said trends today reflected trading in the US dollar, which has been weaker, but attention is turning to next week's interest rate decision.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is expected to cut its official cash rate by 50 basis points to 2.5 per cent next Thursday.

Sentiment today was helped by a firm performance by Wall Street on Thursday but investors are reluctant to take on too much risk until US authorities release the stress test methodology for US banks.

The yen was firm in Asia, which traders attributed to unwinding of positions.

The NZ dollar slipped against the rising yen to 54.55 yen from 54.92 at 8am but was little changed from 54.50 yesterday.

The euro had been firm overnight on positive economic data and the NZ dollar slipped to 0.4275 euro from 0.4285 yesterday.

The NZ dollar was little changed against the Australian dollar at A78.86c from A78.85 yesterday.

The trade weighted index rose to 55.93 from 55.83 yesterday.

Currency rates:

NZ dlr/US dlr US56.20c US55.73c

NZ dlr/Aust dlr A78.86c A78.85c

NZ dlr/euro 0.4275 0.4285

NZ dlr/yen 54.55 54.50

NZ dlr/stg 38.35p 38.40p

NZ TWI 55.93 55.83

Aust dlr/US dlr 71.18c 70.67c

Euro/US dlr 1.3140 1.3012

US dlr/yen 97.12 97.80

- NZPA