That helped spur a rebound in oil prices, aided by comments from the head of Saudi Arabia's state oil company Aramco that a collapse in oil prices below US$30 was irrational and unlikely to last.
"There was a bit of a change in sentiment -- kiwi is back in favour a bit," said Sheldon Slabbert, a trader at CMC Markets New Zealand, who expected a slight gain in the currency this week. "Investors' sentiment has been damaged quite a bit over the first few weeks of the year. A couple of different parts of the market that drove negative sentiment have stabilised into the weekend."
CMC's Slabbert said, while the kiwi was dented by lower inflation figures earlier in the week, manufacturing and consumer confidence data later in the week were more positive.
The market doesn't think we're out of the woods yet, but at least there's a few rays of sunshine coming through the clouds at the moment.
"On net, the domestic data was favourable and now, with that lift in sentiment, that's helping matters along," he said. "The market doesn't think we're out of the woods yet, but at least there's a few rays of sunshine coming through the clouds at the moment."
Looking ahead to next week, he expects the Reserve Bank to keep interest rates on hold for now when it announces its decision on Thursday.
New Zealand's two-year swap rate increased one basis point to 2.65 per cent at 5pm in Wellington, and 10-year swaps rose one basis point to 3.46 per cent.
The New Zealand dollar edged up to 93.17 Australian cents, from 93.09 cents at 5pm yesterday, gained to 60.16 euro cents from 59.10 cents, advanced to 45.91 British pence from 45.40 pence, increased to 76.84 yen from 75.35 yen, and rose to 4.2916 yuan from 4.2329 yuan.
