Currency: Kiwi falls steadily through night

The New Zealand dollar continued to fall through most of the night against a broadly strengthening greenback.

The United States dollar's rise followed an expression of confidence at a G8 finance ministers meeting in the greenback as the world's reserve currency.

By 8am today the kiwi was buying US63.13c, having dropped below US62.80c earlier as the NZ dollar continued to fall away from the week-high above US64.65c reached early on Friday.

BNZ Capital senior strategist Danica Hampton said investors were also encouraged to sell growth sensitive currencies, such as the NZ dollar, by a sharp slip in global equities.

Falls on world sharemarkets were due to questions over the speed and timing of global recovery.

Against the Japanese currency, the NZ dollar fell away to 61.76 yen at the local open from 62.73 yen at 5pm yesterday, but the kiwi did strengthen against its Australian counterpart, to A79.47c from A78.97c.

- NZPA