Currency: Dollar weaker in quiet market

The New Zealand dollar was weaker today as investors' attention turned to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's interest rate decision on April 30.

At 5pm today the NZ dollar was US56.76c from US57.10c at 5pm on Friday. It dipped to US56.46c, the lowest since April 2.

Westpac said the NZ dollar decoupled from global risk sentiment last week because it fell 3.6 per cent when the S&P500 rose 1.2 per cent.

But there is little domestic data due this week so the focus is on the interest rate decision by the RBNZ and the Government's budget on May 28.

The NZ dollar has been low against the Australian dollar but rose today to A78.85c at 5pm from A78.41c at 8am. It is down from A79.40c on Friday.

Westpac said key support at A80c broke decisively last week and the NZ dollar was now headed to A77.20c.

The NZ dollar was little changed at 0.4360 euro at 5pm from 0.4362 on Friday, and was down to 56.17 yen from 56.80. The trade weighted index was 56.67 from 56.94 on Friday.

Currency rates:

NZ dlr/US dlr US56.76c US57.10c

NZ dlr/Aust dlr A78.85c A79.40c

NZ dlr/euro 0.4360 0.4362

NZ dlr/yen 56.17 56.80

NZ dlr/stg 38.50p 38.40p

NZ TWI 56.67 56.94

Aust dlr/US dlr 71.98c 71.88c

Euro/US dlr 1.3016 1.3090

US dlr/yen 98.96 99.50

- NZPA