NZPA - The New Zealand dollar repeated its weekend's success, nudging above the US44c mark today.
A weakening greenback pushed the kiwi to five month highs on Friday, and it held those gains over the weekend and today.
"Today we've traded US43.78c-44.05c and yeah, it looks reasonably good," dealer Sean Brown of Deutsche Bank said.
"I think if people have been looking to sell the US dollar, the NZ and Australian dollars have been two of the bigger beneficiaries."
At 9am the kiwi opened at US43.97c (against Friday's close of US43.20c), and at 5pm it closed up around the US44.09 level.
As well as an easing US dollar, Mr Brown felt the kiwi's performance could be put down to several things: a historically low base, yield advantage ("our rates are higher than a lot of other places you can turn to"), and solid economic data.
"All that leads up to a reasonably positive outlook for the New Zealand dollar, I think."
Demand for the kiwi was reasonably solid and he rated New Zealand's chances of holding onto the gains as generally positive.
"We've come a long way very quickly and the higher we go over a short period of time does increase the chance of any pullback, but I think the medium-term direction is probably up."
Overnight, he felt US equities would determine the NZ dollar's direction, and after that, a US Federal Bank announcement on interest rates on Wednesday morning.
Across the Tasman, the Australian dollar appears to have finally shaken off its troubles, hitting a six month high of US53.78 on Friday night, and leading analysts predict it will soar as high as US58c by year's end. Today it closed around US53.56c.
On the crosses at 6.30pm the kiwi traded at A82.39c (A82.33c at Friday's close), 53.03 yen (52.14), 30.49 pence (29.95), 0.9382 marks (0.9264), 0.7288 Swiss francs (0.7190), and 0.4796 euros (0.4736).
The aussie was buying $NZ1.2147 against Friday's close of $NZ1.2145.
The trade-weighted index was at 51.64 (50.91) and, with 90 day bills at 5.86 percent (5.87), the monetary conditions index tightened to minus 616 (minus 686).
On the bond market the March 2002s were at 5.76 percent (5.75), the April 2004s were at 6.27 percent (6.33), the November 2006s were at 6.43 percent (6.47), and the November 2011s were at 6.58 percent (6.63).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi continues to climb
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