The New Zealand dollar was subdued ahead of a holiday in the United States tonight, in need of clear direction after its recent sell-off.
By 5pm the kiwi was at US57.80c from Friday's local close of US57.15c, while the aussie rose to US64.71c (US64.03c).
Westpac chief currency dealer Basil Payn said the kiwi traded between US57.75c and US58.05c today, and it was likely to have a slightly wider range overnight.
"Obviously we've got the US (Labour Day) holiday tonight, so the market's been a little bit subdued.
"We saw some Asian buying early on, but we saw some importers during the course of the day taking advantage of these higher levels after last week's sell-off," Mr Payn said.
"Basically the market's a bit mixed at the moment. We're waiting to get the US holiday out of the road to see whether last week turned out to be a dip, or we can consolidate at these levels and go back higher ..."
The kiwi dived from levels over US59c on August 20 to a multi-month low of US56.32c a week later, before recovering to gain lost ground.
The Reserve Bank's cash rate review on Thursday is expected to deliver no change to the benchmark interest rate, which is currently at 5.00 per cent.
In Tokyo the yen held recent highs against the US dollar, benefiting from last week's announcement that Japan had not conducted yen-selling intervention in August.
In Wellington at 5pm the US dollar eased to 116.71 yen, against 117.00 on late Friday, while the euro was at US$1.0989 (US$1.0879).
On the crosses at 5pm the kiwi was buying A89.33c (A89.42c on Friday), 67.46 yen (66.96), 36.61 pence (36.28), 0.8099 Swiss francs (0.8090), and 0.5259 euro (0.5261).
The Australian dollar was at $1.1196 ($1.1184).
The monetary conditions index was at plus 251 (228), the trade-weighted index was at 62.31 (62.02) and 90-day bank bill yields were unchanged at 5.14 per cent.
The February 2005 yields were at 5.31 per cent (5.29), the November 2006s were at 5.57 per cent (5.53), and the November 2011s were at 5.92 per cent (5.90).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi subdued ahead of US holiday
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