5.50pm
The New Zealand dollar spent today securing the gains it made during Friday's offshore session as the greenback slumped on poor jobs data.
At 5pm in Wellington the kiwi was buying US65.37c from US64.40c at the same time on Friday and US65.25c at 8.30am today. It traded between US65.22c and US65.50c today.
Westpac chief currency dealer Basil Payn said the kiwi opened higher after Friday night's weaker than expected US non-farms payroll number sent the greenback lower.
The data cast doubt over the health of the US economy and the pace at which the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates.
However, with most of the greenback's move lower already completed, "we've just consolidated at these higher levels today," Mr Payn said.
"We've seen a bit of importer selling against the US and we've seen a bit of weakness against the Aussie with quite a bearish quarterly report from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)."
The RBA said today it would be surprising if interest rates did not have to be increased again at some stage.
At 5pm the kiwi was buying A91.31c (A91.54c at 5pm on Friday).
Meanwhile, Mr Payn said the kiwi was finding support at about US64.80c and resistance at US65.80c.
" We're expecting the kiwi to tick higher over the early part of the week."
Other currencies also benefited from the greenback's fall. The aussie was buying US71.62c ( US70.35c), the euro was buying US$1.2288 (US$1.2070), and the greenback was fetching 110.21 yen (111.73).
On the crosses, the kiwi was buying 0.5323 euro (0.5336), 35.47 British pence (35.31), 72.03 yen (71.94), and 0.8182 Swiss francs (0.8207).
The trade weighted index (TWI) was at 66.14 (65.85), while the monetary conditions index was at plus 676 (654).
On the money and debt markets, 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 6.42 per cent, February 2006 bonds were at 6.10 per cent (6.12) per cent, July 2009s were at 6.12 per cent (6.15), and April 2013s were at 6.13 per cent (6.20).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi digs in at higher levels after greenback's slide
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