5.35pm
The kiwi remains grounded in a tight range today as the market held fire in the lead up to tonight's United States presidential election.
Just after 5pm in Wellington the kiwi was buying US68.23c from US68.57c at 5pm yesterday, having traded in a tight range of US68.20c to US68.32c during the local session.
BNZ currency strategist Sue Trinh said it had been a very slow day, with the kiwi pinned around the US68.30c mark for most of the session.
"Really the market is sitting in wait... for the US presidential election results," Ms Trinh said.
She said while results were expected within 24 hours, if the election outcome was not clear, or recounts were called for, the greenback was likely to suffer.
"It (would) mean uncertainty in the market and the market hates uncertainty so it's likely in that scenario the US dollar is probably going to get punished, which in turn is probably going to help support the kiwi," she said.
Meanwhile just after 5pm today, the Australian dollar was at US74.47c (US74.75c at 5pm yesterday). The euro was at US$1.2737 (US$1.2775), and the greenback was buying 106.54 yen (106.14).
On the crosses the kiwi was at A91.62c (A91.73c), 0.5356 euro (0.5366), 37.22 British pence (37.35), 72.69 yen (72.79), and 0.8203 Swiss francs (0.8211).
The NZ dollar trade-weighted index was at 67.60 (67.55) and the monetary conditions index was at plus 819 (831).
On the money market, 90-day bank bill yields were at 6.74 per cent (6.73). February 2006 bond yields were at 6.19 per cent (6.17), July 2009s were at 6.01 per cent (5.99), and April 2013s were at 6.03 per cent (6.02).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi range-bound ahead of US election
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.