The kiwi ground lower today from highs hit overnight, on the back of some profit taking and thin trade in the lead-up to the release of more data from the US.
At 5pm in Wellington the kiwi was buying US63.84c from US64.11c at 8.30am today and US63.62c at 5pm yesterday.
The kiwi traded in a range of US63.81c to US64.13c today.
Meanwhile, at 5pm the aussie was buying US70.43c from US69.77c last night.
Westpac's chief currency dealer, Basil Payn, said there was some profit taking out of Asia today when the kiwi went over US64c.
He said there were no aggressive selloffs, just a steady grind lower throughout the day.
The market has absorbed the 25 basis point rate hike in the US which was announced yesterday morning NZT, and is now looking ahead to US non-farm payroll data due out tonight.
Economists are expecting an increase of 250,000 jobs in June, in line with the 248,000 rise in May.
Mr Payn said if the data meets expectations the kiwi is likely to continue to range trade, with the US64.20c to US64.30c level proving difficult to break through.
Monday is the Independence Day public holiday in the US and Mr Payn said the market is likely to be fairly muted.
"It probably will be reasonably quiet after non-farm payrolls -- it should calm down a little bit and then we probably won't see much movement until Tuesday or Wednesday next week," Mr Payn said.
Meanwhile, at 5pm in Wellington the greenback was fetching 109.01 yen (108.02 at 5pm last night), while the euro was at US$1.2177 (US$1.2166).
On the crosses, the kiwi was buying A90.65c (A91.19c), 35.07 British pence (35.03), 0.5240 euro (0.5229), 69.60 yen (68.68), and 0.7965 Swiss francs (0.7969).
The trade-weighted index was at 64.85 (64.66), while the monetary conditions index was at plus 559 (544).
On the money market, 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 6.23 per cent.
On the bond market, the February 2006s were unchanged at 6.05 per cent, July 2009s were at 6.15 per cent (6.16) and April 2013s were unchanged at 6.29 per cent.
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi grinds lower, awaits US data
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.