Currency: Dollar down on poor economic news

The New Zealand dollar traded lower today because the US dollar was strong and forecasts released by New Zealand's Treasury were worse than expected.

"We traded down lower throughout the day," said Jake Soanes, head of financial market sales at Westpac.

The NZ dollar was around US65.95c at 8am and had fallen ahead of Treasury's pre-election economic and fiscal update this afternoon. It took another step lower on the statement and by 5pm was trading at US65.15c from US66.22c at 5pm on Friday.

"The market was picking increased budget deficits but the numbers were a lot bigger than we expected," Mr Soanes said.

The US dollar had also been stronger after the US$700 billion ($1.05 trillion) bailout of the US financial system became law on Saturday NZ time.

But the New Zealand dollar has been rising against the Australian dollar ahead of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) monthly board meeting tomorrow.

The markets have factored in a 50 basis points cut to leave the Australian overnight cash rate at 6.50 per cent.

The NZ dollar rose to A86.50c at 5pm from A84.95c at 5pm on Friday.

Mr Soanes said the market was factoring in bigger interest rate cuts in Australia and trades placed by hedge funds were being unwound.

The euro hit a 13 month low against the US dollar today on European financial woes. The NZ dollar was buying 0.4780 euro at 5pm from 0.4784 at 5pm Friday.

Against the yen it was at 67.60 from 69.60. The trade weighted index was 63.39 from 63.86 at 5pm Friday.

Currency rates:

NZ dlr/US dlr US65.15c US66.22c

NZ dlr/Aust dlr A86.50c A84.95c

NZ dlr/euro 0.4780 0.4784

NZ dlr/yen 67.60 69.60

NZ dlr/stg 37.03p 37.44p

NZ TWI 63.39 63.86

Australian dollar US75.40c US77.90c

Euro/US dollar 1.3636 1.3842

US dollar/yen 103.73 105.10

- NZPA