Currency: NZ dollar little changed

The New Zealand dollar gave up some recent gains as the mood among investors switched back to risk aversion but then trimmed its losses.

Dealers said that once the currency adjusted to the weakness in Wall Street and other global news it spent the day in a fairly narrow range.

The NZ dollar was US50.16.c at 5pm, little changed from 50.20c yesterday.

"The market will focus on non-farm payroll data in the US tonight," ANZ chief foreign exchange dealer Murray Hindley said.

"It has been pretty much a range-bound session today," he said.

The US dollar rose against the euro and sterling as central banks in Britain and the euro zone cut borrowing costs but in Asia gave up some gains ahead of the jobs data.

The NZ dollar was at 0.3990 euro, barely changed from the 0.3980 rate at 5pm yesterday.

The kiwi slipped against the Japanese currency to 49.30 yen at 5pm from 49.85 yesterday. It edged up against the Australian dollar to A78.15c from A78.05c.

The trade weighted index was 51.85 at 5pm from 51.91 yesterday.

The focus next week will turn to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's interest rate decision on Thursday.

Currency rates:

5pm today 5pm yesterday:

NZ dlr/US dlr US50.16c US50.20c

NZ dlr/Aust dlr A78.15c A78.05c

NZ dlr/euro 0.3990 0.3980

NZ dlr/yen 49.30 49.85

NZ dlr/stg 35.40p 35.45p

NZ TWI 51.85 51.91

Aust dlr/US dlr 64.16c 64.30c

Euro/US dlr 1.2575 1.2610

US dlr/yen 98.22 99.28

- NZPA