The New Zealand dollar traded in a subdued fashion yesterday, although it gained against its Australian counterpart.
At 5pm the kiwi was buying US51.52c, down from its US51.72c close on Friday, while the aussie weakened to US56.29c from its US56.60c close on Friday. The Australian-kiwi cross rate was a healthy A91.53c,compared with A91.37c on Friday.
ANZ chief foreign exchange dealer Murray Hindley said the New Zealand dollar traded in a range of US51.53/72c, above its low of US51.29 during the weekend.
"Volumes have obviously been pretty light. It's been a little bit subdued so far today, just a little bit of corporate demand, orders to be completed," Mr Hindley said.
The New Zealand market will be closed on Christmas and Boxing days, along with most other markets, although there may be some movements in the kiwi with Tokyo open on those days.
Kiwi dealers return to work on Friday.
In offshore trade, the greenback hovered in narrow ranges above one-month lows against the yen in subdued pre-Christmas trade, watching for developments in Iraq.
With Japan shut on Monday for the Emperor's Birthday holiday and other centres closing mid-week for Christmas, traders said there was not a lot of urgency in the market, which was happy to leave the dollar around its New York closes.
The US dollar was trading at 120.35 yen (120.74 on Friday), while the euro was at $US1.0267 ($US1.0261).
On the crosses in New Zealand, the kiwi was buying 0.5018 euro (0.5042 at Friday's close), 62.00 yen (62.46), 32.15 pence (32.27), and 0.7334 Swiss francs (0.7370).
The Australian dollar was at $NZ1.0924 ($NZ1.0943).
The trade weighted index, a basket of currencies for key New Zealand trading partners, eased to 58.03 from 58.25 on Friday, 90-day bank bills were unchanged at 5.93 per cent, and the monetary conditions index eased to minus 26 from minus seven on Friday.
On the debt market, the April 2004s were steady at 5.70 per cent, the November 2006s unchanged at 5.88 per cent (5.88), the November 2011s were at 6.13 per cent (6.14), and the April 2013s at 6.16 per cent (6.17).
