Kiwi back above US72c as Greenback hit by jobs

The New Zealand dollar opened back up above the US72c mark in Wellington this morning after the US dollar was wounded by poor employment numbers on Friday.

At 8.30am, the kiwi was buying US 72.17c from US71.73c at 5pm on Friday, having traded between US71.53c and US72.30c in the interim.

BNZ currency strategist Sue Trinh said the kiwi regained its footing above US72c after the US dollar was " mortally wounded" by a disappointing payrolls report on Friday.

A surprisingly soft 112,000 new US jobs were created in November, casting a shadow across an already downbeat US holiday sales season, with consumers apparently worried by scarce work and high oil prices.

Although on the way back up, the kiwi did not post any fresh highs and underperformed against most other major currencies, including the Australian dollar, which was buying U78.18c this morning (US77.50c on Friday at 5pm).

Ms Trinh said the local market would remain clearly focused on this week's Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) Monetary Policy Statement (MPS), "which will understandably have much to say about the role of a surging New Zealand dollar in producing a likely undesired further tightening in monetary conditions".

"Investors might be a little wary of pushing the NZ dollar too much higher ahead of the MPS, given the non-negligible chance that the RBNZ suggests that currency strength is overdone."

Meanwhile, at 8.30am the euro was buying US$1.3448 (US$1.3285), while the US dollar was trading at 102.06 yen from 103.44 at yesterday's close.

On the crosses, the kiwi was trading at A92.31c (A92.50c), 0.5366 euro (0.5400), 37.15 British pence (37.31), 73.65 yen (74.16), and 0.8166 Swiss francs (0.8252).

On the money market, 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 6.67 per cent, February 2006 bond yields were unchanged at 6.23 per cent, July 2009s were at 5.99 per cent (6.00) and April 2013s were unchanged at 5.98 per cent.

The trade-weighted index was at 69.17 (69.27), and the monetary conditions index was at plus 926 (934).

- NZPA