NZPA - The New Zealand dollar hauled itself back to work yesterday, but put in a pretty poor performance with the markets extremely quiet.
At 5pm the kiwi slipped to US42.27c from US42.67c at Friday's close, while its Australian counterpart also fell 40 points to US51.80c (US52.22c).
Sean Brown of Deutsche Bank said the kiwi had been stuck in a very narrow range of US42.17/27c, and was likely to hover towards the lower end of a wider US42.00/40c range overnight.
"Very little turnover and not much for the market to go on," Mr Brown said.
"Kiwi's come off a bit in the last couple of days, in line with what the aussie dollar's done against the US dollar."
The kiwi came under pressure over the weekend after United States Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan poured cold water on the growth prospects of the world's largest economy.
Dr Greenspan said in a speech on Friday that the recession-hit US economy showed signs of stabilising, but still faced risks ahead. He also noted that the recent spate of mixed data was largely inconclusive.
"I think Greenspan's dampening growth expectations a little bit, and that's obviously not very good for the commodity currencies," Mr Brown said.
"So a bit weaker - it put all the weakness in on Friday and then had a quiet range. After closing towards the lows we didn't break any new ground with it today."
On the data front, New Zealand December quarter inflation figures are due out on Thursday. In the US industrial output, consumer confidence and trade figures come out later in the week.
Unlike the kiwi, the euro received a boost from Greenspan's speech and closed locally at US89.48c, from US89.25c late Friday.
On the crosses at 5am the kiwi was buying A81.60c (A81.71c at Friday's close), 55.69 yen (56.39), 29.16 pence (29.59), 0.6985 Swiss francs (0.7086) and 0.4723 euro (0.4781). The Australian dollar was buying $NZ1.2260 ($NZ1.2238).
The Trade Weighted Index, which measures the kiwi against a basket of currencies from New Zealand's key trading partners, was at 50.98 (51.48 at Friday's close), 90-day bank bills were at 4.86 per cent (4.89) and the monetary conditions index eased to minus 780 (minus 730).
On the debt market the March 2002 bonds were at 4.73 per cent (4.89), the April 2004s were at 5.52 per cent (5.65), the November 2006s were at 6.10 per cent (6.21) and the November 2011s were at 6.46 per cent (6.55).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi stuck in 10-point range
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