Currency: Kiwi gets lift from current account news

The New Zealand dollar received a gentle leg up from better than expected local current acount data today, during a session which remained quiet overall ahead of tomorrow's New Zealand gross domestic product (GDP) figure.

At 5pm in Wellington the kiwi was at US62.70c from US62.45c this morning (US62.85c at 5pm yesterday), having traded between US62.40c and US62.75c.

The Australian dollar was at US68.99c (US68.85c).

Westpac chief currency dealer Basil Payn said it was "a pretty subdued session really".

The kiwi opened at its lows this morning after falling on an overnight bout of buying of aussie and selling of kiwi.

"And obviously the current account number came out better than expected and we saw a little bit of buying of kiwi and also some cross related buying of aussie-kiwi after that."

Statistics New Zealand reported today that there was a $174 million March quarter current account surplus instead of a deficit of the same size predicted by economists.

The current account, also known as the balance of payments, measures New Zealand's dealings with the rest of the world including trade and "invisibles", such as interest on debt.

M eanwhile Mr Payn expected the kiwi's current US62.30c to US63.10c broader technical range to hold ahead of the GDP data tomorrow.

Elsewhere, the kiwi was buying A90.90c from A91.26c at 5pm last night.

The greenback was buying 108.30 yen (108.76 at 5pm yesterday), while the euro was fetching US$1.2055 (US$1.2151).

On the other crosses, the kiwi was buying 34.59 British pence (34.45), 0.5202 euro (0.5172), 67.90 yen (68.35), and 0.7877 Swiss francs (0.7834).

The trade-weighted index was at 64.03 (64.12), while the monetary conditions index was at plus 487 (493).

On the money market, 90-day bank bill yields were at 6.15 per cent (6.13), February 2006 bonds were unchanged at 6.02 per cent, July 2009s were at 6.18 per cent (6.19), and April 2013s were static at 6.29 per cent.

- NZPA