The New Zealand dollar lost ground today as the US dollar hit around six-week highs against the euro, and on expectations the official cash rate will remain unchanged on Thursday.
Around 6pm the kiwi was at US63.55c, down from US63.95c late on Friday.
The currency was expected to continue its downward path this week ahead of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's monetary policy statement on Thursday.
The central bank, which presides over a 7.25 per cent official cash rate, is expected to dampen fears of another rate hike, reducing the currency's yield advantage, Westpac Institutional Bank said in a note today.
Terms of trade data today showed a 0.7 per cent improvement in New Zealand's terms of trade in the June quarter, reinforcing expectations RBNZ Govenor Alan Bollard will leave rates unchanged.
It was a bleak outlook across the board, according to Westpac - the kiwi also faced downside risk against the Australian dollar, yen, euro and sterling.
However, the kiwi was expected to hold above support around US63.00/32c this week, Westpac said.
The kiwi was kicked to a two-week low by negative comments last week from Finance Minister Michael Cullen on the currency and rating agency Standard & Poor's about the ugly New Zealand current account deficit.
The US dollar held near a six-week high against the euro today after getting a technical bounce late last week, while the yen was steady ahead of the release of Japanese data later in the session.
The following are Reuters currency rates:
5.55pm today 5pm Friday
NZ dlr/US dlr US63.55c US63.95c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A84.54c A84.40c
NZ dlr/euro 0.5008 0.5027
NZ dlr/yen 74.24 74.34
NZ dlr/stg 34.05p 34.12p
NZ TWI 63.87 64.07
Australian dollar US75.25c US75.78c
Euro/US dollar 1.2687 1.2724
US dollar/yen 116.86 116.24
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi loses ground against greenback
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