The New Zealand dollar was "deathly quiet" today as brokers staked their hopes on another strong offshore performance overnight.
By 5pm the kiwi traded at US47.50c, a decent gain on last night's close of US47.38c. During the previous night, the kiwi gained favour among investment banks, breaking out of its six-week range to peak at US47.70c.
Today it hovered in a tight range between US47.31/50c but brokers were looking for a slightly higher overnight range of US47.30/65c.
The aussie rose to US54.44c (US54.26c).
One local broker put the fresh interest in the kiwi down to a couple of positive offshore recommendations highlighting "the high interest rate story and growth, and our stock market's looking good".
Despite the kiwi's upbeat move, BNZ currency strategist Stu Ritson was expecting the kiwi to stick broadly to its longstanding US46.60c/US47.60c range.
In offshore trade, the United States dollar weakened against the European currencies, due to stocks which suffered a "dead cat bounce" -- softening again after yesterday's strong rally from multi-year lows.
Pressure on the greenback also came from wrangling over the terms of United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq, which began eating away at optimism based on Tuesday's news of a UN-Iraq deal.
On the crosses at 5pm the kiwi was at A87.26c (A87.21c at yesterday's close), 58.36 yen (58.24), 0.3028 pence (30.26), 0.7026 Swiss francs (0.7056), and 0.4815 euro (0.4823).
The aussie was buying $1.1480 ($1.1456).
The 90-day bills were little changed at 5.88 per cent (5.89), the trade-weighted index was at 54.57 (54.52), and the monetary conditions index tightened to minus 339 (minus 343).
The longer-dated bonds eased, with the April 2004 bond yields at 5.63 per cent (5.67), the November 2006 bonds at 5.92 per cent (5.96), and the November 2011 bonds at 6.11 per cent (6.14).
- NZPA
<i>Currency:</i> Kiwi trades quietly ahead of possible offshore rise
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