KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand dollar continues to climb back up the cliff it fell down recently but spent today consolidating in mixed trading.
The New Zealand dollar was at US72.27c at 5pm from US72.20c at 8am. The open was near the low of the session of US72.13c and the high on the day was US72.74c.
"There was a bit of buying pressure first up and the aussie was bid as well," said Mark Elliott at ANZ.
The buying was probably carry-trade related. But as the yen strengthened and the US dollar weakened on the yen cross there was pressure on those buying for carry trade reasons.
Mr Elliott said the New Zealand dollar had fallen sharply in recent weeks and it had recovered from lows.
From a chart point of view, as long as the currency did not break above US73c the current move higher was seen as a consolidation before another move lower.
The New Zealand dollar has climbed from around US70.90c about 7pm Friday and tested below US67c when it plunged earlier this month.
The BNZ said a move to US73c-US73.50c was still possible as investors became less averse to taking on risk.
Speculative players still had an appetite for buying New Zealand dollars to invest in our high interest rates.
Against the yen the kiwi was up to 82.97 from 82.74 at 5pm on Friday, against the Australian dollar it was at A87.10c from A86.88c, and against the euro at 0.5286 from 0.5251 at Friday's close.
The trade weighted index was 69.51 at 5pm, from 68.83.
Reuters currency rates:
(5pm today 5pm Friday)
NZ dlr/US dlr US72.27c US71.25c
NZ dlr/Aust dlr A87.10c A86.88c
NZ dlr/euro 0.5286 0.5251
NZ dlr/yen 82.97 82.74
NZ dlr/stg 35.87p 35.54p
NZ TWI 69.51 68.83
Australian dollar US82.96c US82.04c
Euro/US dollar 1.3671 1.3566
US dollar/yen 116.19 116.17
- NZPA
