The New Zealand dollar spent most of today's local session trading around the US72c mark following a tilt at its post-float high last night.
At 5pm the kiwi was buying US72.21c from US72.37c at the same time yesterday after ranging between US71.87c and its close on the top side.
"It's pretty well bounced up and down between those two levels," Westpac currency strategist Johnathan Bayley said.
The kiwi had pushed as high US72.65c last night, just 10 basis points off its US72.75c June 1988 post-float high.
Mr Bayley said the market had shown some interest in comments by Finance Minister Michael Cullen reported last night in which he said high world commodity prices lessened the impact of the stronger kiwi on exporters.
"But clearly, if commodity prices came back strongly then we would be in that classic squeeze between a strong (New Zealand) dollar and weak commodity prices," Dr Cullen said.
Mr Bayley said the kiwi was quite well underpinned by Japanese buying today, probably related to a recent Uridashi (retail bond) issue.
He said the market was mainly concerned with Thursday's monetary policy statement at which the Reserve Bank is expected to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 6.50 percent.
Meanwhile the US dollar was at 102.88 yen having closed at 102.12 here yesterday and the euro was at $US1.3420 ($US1.3450 at 5pm yesterday).
The aussie was buying US77.58c (78.17c).
On the crosses, the kiwi was at A93.04c (A92.66c), 0.5379 euro (0.5384), 37.18 British pence (37.30), 74.26 yen (73.96), and 0.8217 Swiss francs (0.8186).
On the money market, 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 6.67 percent while February 2006 bond yields were on 6.24 percent (6.21). The July 2009s were at 5.97 percent (5.95) and April 2013s were at 5.95 percent (5.94).
The trade-weighted index was at 69.42 (69.43), and the monetary conditions index was at plus 944.
- NZPA
<EM>Currency:</EM> Kiwi trades around US72c in local session
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