The New Zealand dollar continued to slide across the board today following last night' s US Federal Reserve rate hike and looked vulnerable to further losses, a local dealer said.
The kiwi had slipped to a six-month low of US69.29c against the US dollar overnight -- its weakest since January -- after the Fed bumped its key interest rate up 25 basis points to 3.25 per cent.
By 5pm in Wellington, it was buying US69.23c from US69.67c at 8.30am and US70.07c at yesterday's local close.
Westpac currency strategist Johnathan Bayley said the kiwi's post-Fed sell off this morning saw it break through several technical levels against the greenback, including important support at US69.55c.
It had traded up a little later in the morning hitting a high for the local session of US69.75c but had subsequently moved lower again, hitting a low of US69.21c.
Mr Bayley said after last week's poor local economic data, the kiwi's softer tone was no surprise. " The sentiment is -- for the most part -- reasonably bearish on kiwi crosses and kiwi-US."
While the greenback had lost a lot of its recent momentum, investors were still picking it to keep rising in the near term, " hence here we are going lower".
"Many offshore investors will be pushed into action by what we've seen today and I'd be surprised if the offshore market doesn't take it a bit lower overnight."
On its crosses this evening, the kiwi was buying A91.05c (A91.71c at 5pm yesterday), 38.75 British pence (38.78), 0.5736 euro (0.5798), 0.8896 Swiss francs (0.8957) and 76.84 yen (77.30).
The TWI was at 69.88 (70.48) and the monetary conditions index was at plus 1014 (1058).
The US dollar was buying 111.01 yen (110.30), while the euro was buying US$1.2069 (US$1.2088) and the Australian dollar was buying US76.02c (US76.41c).
On the money markets, 90-day bank bill yields were steady at 7.04 per cent, July 2009 bonds were unchanged at 5.86 per cent and April 2015s were at 5.71 per cent (5.73).
- NZPA
<EM>Currency:</EM> Kiwi continues post-Fed slide
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