The New Zealand dollar today briefly touched a new 6-1/2 year high of US68.28c before pulling back to hover just above the key US68c mark.
At 5pm today, the kiwi was fetching US68.15c (US67.90c at close on Friday), having traded between US68.08c and US68.28c.
The previous high of US68.27c was achieved on Friday when fragile sentiment towards the greenback was dealt a further blow by a weak US employment report.
The Australian dollar was at US77.84c (US77.63c)
BNZ currency strategist Sue Trinh said the greenback sank as soon as the data showing that only a 1000 jobs were added to non-farm payrolls last month hit the wires.
The market had expected 150,000 jobs to be added, Ms Trinh said, noting the impact of the weaker US dollar was felt in the domestic market today.
"It was markedly lower than a lot of people expected and provided the excuse for a lot of people to sell the US dollar based on the expectation that the US Federal Reserve is not going to be raising rates," she said.
The Federal Reserve's benchmark interest rate is at 1 percent, a 45-year low, compared with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's official cash rate of 5 percent.
Meanwhile, the euro also capitalised on the new round of US dollar weakness, pushing to an all-time high of $US1.2870 on Friday.
"Now it has settled in to a bit more of a consolidation mode. It's been a passive beneficiary of the US dollar's weakness."
At 5pm, the euro was at $US1.2845 ($US1.2764), while the greenback was buying 106.41 yen (106.18).
On the crosses the kiwi was buying A87.58c (A87.59c), 0.5306 euro (0.5321), 72.60 yen (72.12), 36.93 British pence (37.06), and 0.8324 Swiss francs (0.8336).
The monetary conditions index was at plus 617 (618), the trade-weighted index was at 66.86 (66.77) and 90-day bank bills were at 5.28 percent (5.37).
On the debt market, February 2006 bond yields were at 5.45 percent (5.60), and November 2011 bonds were at 5.85 percent (6.00).
- NZPA
<I>Currency:</I> NZ dollar hovers just below 6-1/2 year highs on poor US data
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