The New Zealand dollar regained some ground today in advance of tomorrow's US rate call after slipping to a four-week low last night.
At 5pm in Wellington the kiwi was buying US70.07c from US69.93c at 8.30am and US70.08c at yesterday's local close. Its range during today's local session was US69.84c to US70.12c.
The kiwi traded as low as 69.68c over night but rose again on the back of a euro rally.
The US Federal Reserve Bank is expected to raise its interest rates by 25 basis points tomorrow morning New Zealand time.
"When this data comes out there will be a knee jerk reaction where the kiwi will go down but perhaps come back up to the US70c mark again in the short term," a National Bank dealer said.
She said New Zealand's comparatively strong interest rates had so far tempered the recent run of weak local economic data but the kiwi was expected to depreciate in the medium term.
On its crosses, the kiwi was buying A91.71c (A91.78c at 5pm yesterday), 38.78 British pence (38.56), 0.5798 euro (0.5809), 0.8957 Swiss francs (0.8972) and 77.30 yen (77.10).
The TWI was at 70.48 (70.58) and the monetary conditions index was at plus 1058 (1062).
The US dollar was buying 110.30 yen (110.00), while the euro was buying US$1.2088 (US$1.2068) and the Australian dollar was buying US76.41 (US76.34c).
On the money markets, 90-day bank bill yields were at 7.04 per cent (7.03), July 2009 bonds were at 5.86 per cent (5.85) and April 2015s were unchanged at 5.73 per cent.
- NZPA
<EM>Currency:</EM> Kiwi regains ground ahead of Fed announcement
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