KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar spent its domestic session consolidating around two-week lows ahead of the vote on the US financial bailout.
The NZ dollar was at US66.22c at 5pm from US65.92c at 8am and US67.25c at 5pm yesterday.
There was turmoil again on markets today but it manifested mostly in falls in Asian equity markets and a rise in the yen.
Risk aversion was again the catch cry and that limited the topside for the NZ dollar.
The focus is undoubtedly on the progress of the US financial rescue package through the US political system.
The US$700 billion ($1055 billion) bailout of the US financial sector bill was passed by the Senate on Wednesday night and the House of Representatives is expected to vote again on Friday US time.
But attention is also turning to Treasury's pre-election fiscal update on the New Zealand economy on Monday.
The question is how bleak will the update be.
The NZ dollar has been strong against the Australian dollar and by 5pm it was buying A84.95c, little changed from A84.99c at 5pm yesterday . At 5pm, the NZ dollar was buying 0.4784 euro from 0.4810 at 5pm yesterday, while against the yen it was at down to 69.60 from 71.20.
The trade weighted index was 63.86 at 5pm, down from 64.55 at 5pm yesterday.
Currency rates:
NZ dlr/US dlr US66.22c US67.25c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A84.95c A84.99c
NZ dlr/euro 0.4784 0.4810
NZ dlr/yen 69.60 71.20
NZ dlr/stg 37.44p 37.98p
NZ TWI 63.86 64.55
Australian dollar US77.90c US79.15c
Euro/US dollar 1.3842 1.3895
US dollar/yen 105.10 105.86
- NZPA
