The New Zealand dollar struggled to cling to US48c yesterday as sentiment towards the Australasian currencies took a swift negative turn.
By 5pm the kiwi was at US48.03c from US48.68c at Thursday night's close while its Australian trading partner skidded to US55.76c (US56.40c).
"It's a bit more negative out there," one local dealer said.
"It looks like there are orders to sell around US48.50c that are just pushing us lower."
Peter Hunt of HSBC said that the kiwi had traded the full range in the last few days, from a high of US49.45c three nights ago to a low of US48.00c.
"The long positions in the market in the euro, aussie and kiwi are weighing on these currencies at present," Mr Hunt said.
The kiwi was expected to range between US47.75c and US48.25c overnight.
"We are in a consolidation phase now rather than a broad uptrend and people are looking for a test of the US47.80c support level - that was a reasonable resistance on the way up," one dealer said.
The focus overnight will be on US retail sales data for June. Economists polled by Reuters on average expect sales to rise 0.7 per cent overall and 0.5 per cent excluding motor vehicles, erasing most of the previous month's losses.
The kiwi lost ground on all the major crosses yesterday. By 5pm it was buying A86.15c (A86.32c at Thursday's close), 56.11 yen (57.29), 30.95 pence (31.44), 0.7135 Swiss francs (0.7237) and 0.4867 euro (0.4924).
Against the kiwi, the aussie was buying $NZ1.1619 ($NZ1.1584).
On the money market, 90-day bills were at 6.05 per cent (6.04), the trade-weighted index was at 54.44 (55.13) and the monetary conditions index eased to minus 334 (minus 272).
On the debt market, the April 2004 bonds were at 5.88 per cent (5.83), the November 2006 bonds were at 6.27 per cent (6.26), and the November 2011 bonds were at 6.59 per cent (6.51).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi clings to US48c
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