KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar held onto its gains made yesterday, in a fairly uneventful session.
By 5pm, the kiwi was at US78.07c, little changed from this morning but up from US77.55c late yesterday afternoon. It was also steady on the day against the Aussie at A90.56c, but up from yesterday's A90.16c
"Relative to where it was yesterday, it's made quite a strong comeback after quite a sizeable fall yesterday morning in particular," said Westpac currency strategist, Michael Gordon.
"We didn't really note strong selling yesterday, so I don't think there was a lot of conviction to be selling at this point despite expectations that the tone of the data here is going to get a bit worse," Mr Gordon said.
On the other hand, buying interest outside of Japanese retail investors had also been soft.
Today's rise followed a speech early this morning by Finance Minister Michael Cullen in which he said the economy was continuing to grow unsustainably fast.
He reiterated the Government's strategy for dealing with the problem and said that if it ran a looser fiscal policy the Reserve Bank would certainly increase interest rates further.
The kiwi traded between US78.40c and US78.05c, standing aside when its Australian counterpart was sold off on the back of weaker than expected employment data today.
Inflation data on Monday is expected to prove stronger than Reserve Bank forecasts, keeping pressure on the central bank to remain hawkish.
The yen remained close to a record low against the euro after the Bank of Japan held interest rates unchanged at 0.5 per cent as expected, but did so on a split vote.
The US dollar was little changed after recovering from a brief sell-off, and it stayed near a record low against the euro and a 26-year trough versus sterling.
The yen initially slipped against the US dollar and the euro as investors took the vote to suggest that the central bank may not be in hurry to raise rates, despite expectations of an increase as early as August.
Reuters currency rates:
5pm today 5pm yesterday
NZ dlr/US dlr US78.07c US77.55c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A90.56c A90.16c
NZ dlr/euro 0.5676 0.5644
NZ dlr/yen 95.51 94.38
NZ dlr/stg 38.43p 38.28p
NZ TWI 75.03 74.53
Australian dollar US86.17c US86.01c
Euro/US dollar 1.3751 1.3738
US dollar/yen 122.35 121.71
- NZPA