The NZ dollar rose to a two-week high, lifted by widespread selling of the US dollar and the biggest rally in the value of the Chinese yuan in a year.
The kiwi gained to US69.89 cents at 5pm yesterday from US69.56c at 8am and US69.02c on Wednesday. The trade-weighted indexincreased to 77.59 from 77.13 Wednesday.
The greenback had been trading at 14-year highs off the back of Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election. Tim Kelleher, head of institutional foreign exchange sales at ASB Bank in Auckland, said Asian currencies had all benefited from a large-scale sell-off of the US dollar.
"It's been quite volatile ... the biggest thing has been the offshore move on the yuan which has seen the biggest rally in a year that's fed through to the Asian currencies including the kiwi. The People's Bank of China has clearly come in and told state-backed companies to sell US dollars, and there's been selling of US dollars across the board in Asia."
Kelleher added that he believed an interim low in the value of the kiwi had now passed.
The kiwi gained slightly against its transtasman counterpart, rising to A95.81c cents from A95.34c on Wednesday. Against the Chinese yuan, the NZ dollar rose slightly to 4.8406 Chinese yuan from 4.8004 yuan.
The kiwi gained slightly against the euro, rising to 66.42c from 66.32c Wednesday. It rose against the British pound to 56.70p from 56.36p The kiwi fell slightly against the Japanese yen to 81.38 from 81.46.
