The New Zealand dollar was today driven by overseas events, a scene likely to continue until the end of the week.
At 5pm the kiwi was worth US53.14 cents, up nearly half a cent from US52.68 at the same time yesterday.
It reached a high of US54.41c thismorning but lost ground after that to hit a low of US52.90c about 2pm.
It strengthened through the New York session but gave up gains on back of comments that Russia was looking to reschedule some of its debt with European banks, said ANZ chief foreign exchange dealer Murray Hindley.
The euro weakened, Australian business confidence was weak and weaker UK housing data meant the kiwi had also weakened in line with the non-US currencies, he said.
With no local data to dwell on, traders had looked for overseas data.
On Thursday the Australian labour force survey and US retail sales data would be released.
There would be more of a local focus on Friday when New Zealand retail trade figures for the December quarter were released.
Traders would be watching with interest to see what the Russian news would do through the London and Europe trading session and if there was a continuation of the weakness seen this afternoon, Mr Hindley said. Against other currencies the kiwi rose against the Australian dollar from A78.80c at 5pm yesterday to 79.54 at 5pm today.
It was up against the euro from 0.4075 to 0.4145, up against the Japanese yen from 48.20 to 48.62 and also up against the British pound, from 35.72p to 35.86.
The trade weighted index rose from 52.90 to 53.36.
