NZ dollar continues to slide

The New Zealand dollar continued its decline this morning, as technical issues and words of woe from the Reserve Bank continued to weigh.

BNZ currency strategist Sue Trinh said the New Zealand dollar's chart over the past week was "just plain ugly".

Over the course of last week the trade weighted index (TWI), which measures the kiwi against the currencies of the country's five main trading partners, fell 1.5 per cent.

At 8.30am today the kiwi was buying US68.30c, from US68.78c at 5pm Friday.

"While the technicals have been incredibly important for the New Zealand dollar's price action over the past week, bearish comments from RBNZ governor Alan Bollard have not been a supportive influence either, even as he highlighted the ongoing upside risk to nominal New Zealand interest rates in the wake of the ballooning current account deficit," Ms Trinh said.

Dr Bollard delivered a hard hitting speech last week in which he warned the housing market was over-valued and the kiwi was set to fall.

He would have taken no comfort from ASB's latest housing confidence survey, out today. A net 30 per cent of survey respondents believe house prices will rise in the next 12 months, up from a net 20 per cent in the previous quarter.

- NZPA