Kiwi dollar continues freefall

The New Zealand dollar slid to a two-week low against the greenback as the United States currency continued its broad upward momentum.

By 8am the kiwi was buying US70.65c, having dipped below US70.55c a little earlier. It was down from US71.04c at 5pm yesterday.

The US dollar rose to a more than six-week high versus the yen as expectations the US economy is reviving encouraged investors to bet the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates sooner rather than later.

The euro stayed near its weakest level in more than three months against the greenback, pressured by lingering concerns about the fiscal health of Greece.

Solid figures on the US job market and retail sales earlier this month have prompted talk the US economy may recover sooner than the euro zone and Japan, helping the US currency to keep moving up.

ANZ bank said an "absolute minimum" of data was released overnight.

On the face of it, it looked as if risk was being put back on the table with equities and commodities performing strongly, but on a closer look it was far from clear risk was at all making a comeback, ANZ said.

If it was, the Australian and NZ dollars would not be still probing the downside, and the US dollar would have moved lower. Instead, specific factors seemed to be at play in each market.

A further easing of the NZ dollar was likely to unfold throughout today's trading. Some momentum helping the move may be delivered with the release of third quarter current account data at 10.45am today, ANZ said.

The kiwi edged up to A80.18c against the Australian dollar at 8am from A79.92c at 5pm. It was little changed at 0.4942 euro at the local open, and was slightly higher at 64.39 yen from 64.21 at the local close. The trade weighted index was 64.72 at 8am from 64.81 at 5pm.

- NZPA