Dollar eases against Aussie

The New Zealand dollar was firm today but lost some ground against a strong Australian dollar.

Rising equity markets have again made investors more comfortable with taking on risk, but investors are also wary about how far the NZ dollar has risen after it moved above US73c last week.

The NZ dollar was US71.91c at 5pm from US71.63c at 8am and US71.33c at 5pm yesterday.

BNZ currency strategist Danica Hampton described the NZ dollar as trading "choppily" within a US71-72c range.

The bank expected bounces against the US dollar to be limited to US72.20c. Initial support was eyed ahead of US71.10c.

The Australian dollar gained to US87.49c from US86.05c yesterday and is near last week's 13-month high of US87.90c.

Australian shares rose today buoyed by merger activity and commentators were busy speculating in the wake of comments by Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens this week that Australian interest rates will rise sooner than previously thought.

The NZ dollar eased to A82.17c at 5pm from A82.81c yesterday.

I t was at 0.4916 euro from 0.4887 at 5pm yesterday and 64.69 yen from 63.72 yen yesterday.

The trade weighted index rose to 65.49 from 65.19 yesterday.

The US dollar rose against the yen on Tuesday as investors trimmed short positions and after Japan's finance minister said intervention was possible in extreme cases.

- NZPA