The New Zealand dollar broke back through the US70c mark today, driven up by continued demand for high yielding currencies.
The yield-driven demand for the kiwi was highlighted by an $1.18 billion offering of uridashi bonds by Rentenbank on Wednesday.
Uridashis are New Zealand dollar denominated bonds sold to Japanese investors.
After a quiet week on the domestic data front, the information flow is set to pick up next week, with the quarterly survey of business opinion due next Tuesday and August retail sales data on Friday.
The US dollar weakened after hawkish comments from the European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet bolstered the euro.
Although the ECB left its key interest rate unchanged at 2 percent yesterday, Mr Trichet said the central bank was ready to raise rates should inflationary problems worsen.
The Bank of England also left its rates unchanged, at 4.5 percent yesterday. This followed on from the Reserve Bank of Australia's decision on Wednesday to not move its 5.5 percent key interest rate.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand next meets on October 27 and the market is not ruling out further tightening. New Zealand's official cash rate is 5.75 percent, the highest key interest rate in the developed world.
The following are Reuters currency rates:
NZ dlr US70.07c US69.78c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A92.09c A92.05c
NZ dlr/euro 0.5762 0.5788
NZ dlr/yen 79.47 79.48
NZ dlr/stg 39.47p 39.37p
NZ TWI 70.97 70.93
Australian dollar US76.12c US75.77c
Euro/US dollar US1.2168 US1.2054
US dollar/yen 113.37 113.87
- NZPA
<EM>Currency:</EM> Kiwi pushes back through US70c
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