The kiwi eased from fresh post-float highs against the greenback today, as the US dollar rebounded from yesterday's slump.
At 5pm the kiwi was trading at US72.70c, having hit a fresh high of US73.05c in the offshore session.
ANZ Investment Bank senior dealer Mark Elliott said the kiwi could slip back to US72.20c-US72.40c, but this would be a short term correction in the context of a longer term continuing uptrend.
"The caveat being the structure of the market is constructive for further imminent advances provided we don't go back through US71.75c," he said.
He said the kiwi movements today were pretty much dictated by movements in the greenback.
Yesterday the greenback posted its biggest daily fall in two months against major currencies as the market seized on reports that South Korea's central bank planned to spread its reserves among a greater variety of currencies.
But the US dollar rebounded today after South Korea signalled its plans to diversify its foreign exchange reserves were not new and did not mean it would sell the US currency.
Dealers said that the US dollar's buy-back against the yen was also sparked by data that showed a big slowdown in Japanese exports in January, suggesting Japan's economy was struggling to recovery after falling into recession for much of 2004.
At 5pm the greenback was buying 104.65 yen (105.15 yen at 5pm yesterday.
Meanwhile the euro was buying US$1.3241 compared with US$1.3148 at 5pm yesterday and the aussie was at US79.17c (US79.05c).
On its major crosses at 5pm today the kiwi was buying A91.82c (A91.03c), 0.5490 euros (0.5532), 38.10 pence (38.38), 76.08 yen (76.71), and 0.8440 Swiss francs (0.8542).
The Trade Weighted Index (TWI) was at 70.16 (70.41). The monetary conditions index was at plus 1016 (1044).
On the money markets, 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 6.86 per cent, July 2009 bonds were at 6.13 per cent (6.16) and April 2015s were at 5.97 per cent (5.98).
During tonight's offshore session, markets will focus on data due out from the US including January consumer prices, as well as the release of minutes of the Federal Reserve's rate setting meeting on February 1-2 .
- NZPA
<EM>Currency:</EM> Kiwi softens from record high
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