The New Zealand dollar ended the Wellington session near its highs for the day as it piggybacked a rising Australian dollar.
At 5pm the kiwi closed at US45.00c, up on its US44.83c close Monday, while the aussie had risen to US54.15c from US53.94c Monday.
One local dealer said the kiwi popped up 10 points within minutes of the session's end as the aussie made a push beyond the key US54.10c level.
"The kiwi was happy to sit at US44.85/90c and wait to see what happened. Aussie popped up, and it didn't really shoot away like it would if there was a huge amount of stops, it slowly ground its way up," the dealer said.
"It was basically a pretty quiet day. The next level for the kiwi is US44.15/17c. I wouldn't think we'd get there tonight, I'd think we'd be looking at a range of US44.85/45.05c, barring anything out of the blue in the aussie," he said.
"We haven't seen too many flows at all in terms of offshore or domestic markets, everyone seems pretty quiet."
In offshore trade the greenback hit fresh two-month lows on the yen and seven-month troughs on both the euro and Swiss franc, in part because of a sell-off on Wall Street ahead of an expected no-change from the United States Federal Reserve for interest rates overnight Monday.
In New Zealand the euro closed at US91.81c, from US91.58c Monday night, while the dollar was at 126.92 yen, from 127.18 yen Monday.
Across the ditch, the Reserve Bank of Australia was to meet to discuss interest rates and is widely expected to announce a 25 basis point hike in its official rate to 4.5 per cent today.
On the crosses at 5pm the kiwi was at A83.13c (A83.12c at Monday's close), 0.4903 euro (0.4896), 57.14 yen (57.01), 30.65 pence (30.53) and 0.7127 Swiss francs (0.7128).
The aussie was buying $NZ1.2032 ($NZ1.2031).
The monetary conditions index tightened to minus 484 (minus 494), the trade weighted index was at 53.13 (53.01), and 90-day bank bills were at 5.76 per cent (5.77).
On the debt market, the April 2004 bond yields were at 6.06 per cent (6.09), the November 2006s were at 6.53 per cent (6.59), and the November 2011s were at 6.71 per cent (6.76).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi pops up to clear US45c at close
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