The New Zealand dollar climbed to its highest level in more than a week against the greenback, as the United States currency fell broadly.
Improved US unemployment and retail sales data boosted hopes of an economic recovery and reduced safe-haven demand for the greenback.
The kiwi's rise also came in
the wake of the Reserve Bank's decision yesterday to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 2.5 per cent.
By 8am the kiwi was buying US64.33c, having peaked above US64.65c earlier in the morning. It was up from US62.71c 24 hours earlier and from US63.72c at 5pm yesterday.
ANZ bank today said that while not much could be done about a US dollar that remained out of favour and was pushing the NZ dollar up by default, that was not the full story.
Commodity prices were rising again around the globe as the green shoots thesis dominated sentiment, ANZ said.
"But unfortunately for NZ, the strongly rising commodities are generally not the ones that NZ exports."
International dairy prices remained subdued and the declaration of an influenza pandemic by the World Health Organisation could be a problem for the tourism industry if it caused travellers to stay at home.
The NZ dollar was up to 0.4561 euro at 8am from 0.4535 at 5pm, and up to 62.77 yen from 62.32.
Against the Australian dollar the kiwi was barely changed at A78.52c by the local open, while the trade weighted index rose to 60.52 at 8am from 60.20 at 5pm.
- NZPA
