The New Zealand dollar consolidated today ahead of the release of US non-farm payroll data.The NZ dollar rose above 74USc yesterday and the Australian dollar rose above 92.60USc when strong Australian retail sales data suggested there will be more interes
The New Zealand dollar consolidated today ahead of the release of US non-farm payroll data.
The NZ dollar rose above 74USc yesterday and the Australian dollar rose above 92.60USc when strong Australian retail sales data suggested there will be more interest rate rises.
The NZ dollar eased on Thursday night and was at 73.11USc at 5pm today, little changed from 73.23USc at 8am and 73.78USc at 5pm yesterday.
The Australian dollar eased to 91.53USc by 5pm and the NZ dollar eased to 79.85Ac at 5pm from 80.00Ac yesterday.
BNZ currency strategist Danica Hampton said the US non farm payroll report was expected to reveal flat jobs growth in the US in December.
The NZ dollar held inside and expected range from 73-73.80USc today ahead of that data.
The US dollar dipped today after Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan said markets should decide exchange rates. It had earlier gained after European economic data suggested a weak, slow recovery and the Japanese finance minister called for a weaker yen.
The NZ dollar reached a 10-week high against the Japanese currency around ¥68.56 early yesterday afternoon and was at ¥68.18 at 5pm today.
After peaking at a 21-month high against the European currency, around €0.5140 early yesterday afternoon, the NZ dollar was down to €0.5107 by 5pm today.
The trade weighted index was down to 66.70 at 5pm from 66.96 yesterday.
