The kiwi held its ground above US71c in a muted day's trading today as the market awaits a busy data flow next week.
BNZ currency strategist Sue Trinh said it had been a relatively quiet day of consolidation following a few days of whippy trading.
At 5pm the kiwi was buying US71.26c from US71.32c at 5pm last night having traded a US71.09c to US71.31c range.
Ms Trinh said that a flow of domestic data due out next week would be "huge" for the kiwi.
The data includes the Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion data, the first quarter consumer price index and retails sales figures.
"They will be mega important in terms of framing the risks around the April 28 OCR (official cash rate) review," Ms Trinh said.
The kiwi held its ground against the aussie, which is now a somewhat less attractive yield currency following this week's decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia to leave its key interest rate unchanged.
Against the aussie this evening, the kiwi was at A92.96c (A92.95c at 5pm yesterday). The aussie was buying US76.66c (US76.75c).
Meanwhile the US dollar climbed to a two-month high against euro on expectations that the greenback's interest rate advantage over other currencies would keep widening, possibly at a faster pace.
At 5pm in Wellington, the euro was at US$1.2822 (US$1.2029) while the greenback was at 108.67 yen (108.49).
On its other major crosses the kiwi was fetching 77.43 yen (77.39), 0.5558 euro (0.5529), 38.11 British pence (37.86), and 0.8626 Swiss francs (0.8579).
The trade-weighted index was at 70.32 (70.20), while the monetary conditions index was at plus 1052 (1043).
On the money markets, 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 7.10 per cent, July 2009 bonds were at 6.23 per cent (6.22) and April 2015s were at 6.11 per cent (6.09).
- NZPA
<EM>Currency</EM>: Kiwi consolidates gains in quiet trade
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.