The New Zealand dollar continued to attract fans yesterday despite a terrorism alert that rattled the currency markets overnight.
At 5pm the kiwi was at US44.84c from US44.54c at Thursday's close. The unit briefly touched a high of US44.95c during the session.
News that a small plane crashed into a Milan skyscraper overnight ignited fears of September 11-style terror attacks and gave the US dollar a brief boost at the expense of the euro as investors flocked to safe-haven currencies.
The euro quickly recovered, however, after Italian officials declared the crash an accident, and the kiwi and aussie followed suit.
"It's just been one-way traffic since we opened," Deutsche Bank dealer Tim Robinson said.
"Kiwi's been steadily grinding up to US44.80c, which a lot of people talked about as technical resistance."
Mr Robinson said the kiwi was being buoyed by a combination of a weak US dollar story, a positive yield story - with New Zealand leading the world in interest rate rises - and a positive global growth outlook.
"I see us continuing to do well. I guess US45.50c is the target initially and longer term up to US47c over the course of the next six months or so.
"The market is fairly comfortable running up and it doesn't really feel like something you want to stand in front of."
Overnight Mr Robinson picked the kiwi would trade between US44.60c and US45.05c.
The Australian dollar closed at US54.03c (US53.78c).
On the crosses the kiwi ended at A82.99c (A82.83c at Thursday's close), 0.5027 euro (0.5001), 58.24 yen (58.20), 30.93 pence (30.80) and 0.7374 Swiss francs (0.7352).
The aussie was buying $NZ1.2048 ($NZ1.2071).
The monetary conditions index tightened slightly to minus 446 (minus 465), the trade weighted index was at 53.58 (53.35), and 90-day bank bills were steady at 5.74 per cent.
On the debt market, the April 2004 bond yields were firm at 6.21 per cent, as were the November 2006s at 6.67 per cent, and the November 2011s at 6.88 per cent.
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi races away despite global shocks
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