5.50pm
The kiwi dollar spent today's local session consolidating just short of the eight-year high it struck last night as the US dollar crumpled against most currencies.
At 5pm in Wellington, the kiwi was buying US70.80c, compared with its US70.07c close yesterday. It traded as high as US71.02c early this morning, beating February's peak of US70.96c and not far off its all-time high of US72.75c in June 1988.
ANZ Investment Bank senior dealer Mark Elliott said it was just a matter of time before the "very perky" kiwi broke through both the February and all-time highs.
"It's a pervasive US dollar bear market trend that's driving this," he said.
The US dollar plunged to an all-time low against the euro last night ahead of the upcoming G20 finance ministers' meeting in Berlin, as analysts fretted that officials would do little to stem the greenback's fall.
Mr Elliott believed the kiwi would run fairly close to US80c in coming months before the current uptrend was over.
However despite last night's big move, he said local trade today was relatively quiet.
"It's the usual story -- we move against the US dollar in the offshore market and usually our time zone is just a consolidation."
Elsewhere, the Australian dollar was buying US78.24c ( US78.30c at 5pm yesterday).
The euro was at US$1.3037 ($1.2960), having soared to an all-time peak against the greenback of US$1.3047 last night.
Against the yen, the US dollar was buying 103.95 (105.42).
On the crosses, the kiwi was buying A90.51c (A90.55c), 0.5431 euro (0.5403) 38.07 British pence (37.71), 73.61 yen (73.84 yen) and 0.8235 Swiss francs (0.8233).
The trade-weighted index was at 68.79 (68.48) and the monetary conditions index was at plus 906 (884).
On the money market, 90-day bank bill yields were at 6.74 per cent (6.75).
February 2006 bond yields were on 6.23 per cent (6.24), July 2009s were at 5.98 per cent (6.00) and April 2013s were at 6.04 per cent (6.08).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi takes breather just short of 8 year high
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