5.50pm
The kiwi held on to gains made on Friday, trading in a tight range in today's local session.
At 5pm in Wellington the kiwi was buying US68.65c from US68.25c at 5pm on Friday, having traded in a US68.60c to US68.74c range today.
Westpac currency strategist Johnathan Bayley said $1.3 billion worth of uridashi (Japanese retail bond) issuances over the past couple of weeks had boosted buying out of Asia. "... that's quite a bit of kiwi to be settled," he said.
Mr Bayley said the market was still bearish the US dollar, with data flow remaining disappointing and the market still refusing to price in a December rate hike.
The US dollar weakened on Friday, as US retail sales came in better than expected but producer prices and business inventories were in line with expectations and industrial production and capacity utilisation data disappointed markets.
On the domestic data front, Friday's release of the Consumer Price Index showed third quarter inflation remained high, pointing to further rate hikes.
At 5pm today, the Australian dollar was buying US73.09c (US72.95c at 5pm Friday), the euro was buying US$1.2481 (US$1.2397) and the US dollar was buying 109.29 yen (109.51).
On the other crosses, the kiwi was buying A93.92c (A93.60c), 0.5500 euros (0.5507), 38.05 British pence (37.98), 75.02 yen (74.73) and 0.8466 Swiss francs (0.8490).
The New Zealand dollar trade-weighted index (TWI) was at 68.94 (68.75), while the monetary conditions index was at plus 919 (905).
In the money market, 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 6.76 per cent. On the bond market, February 2006s were unchanged at 6.17 per cent, July 2009s were at 6.03 per cent (6.02) and April 2013s were at 6.06 per cent (6.04).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi holds onto gains
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