Kiwi holds ground going into holidays

The New Zealand dollar has held above US70c as investors continued to take heart from Thursday’s upwardly revised gross domestic product numbers.

The kiwi traded at US70.19c as at 3pm yesterday in Wellington from US70.07c on Thursday.

The trade-weighted index was at 73.83 from 73.75. The local currency got a lift on Thursday when Statistics New Zealand’s

revisions to the GDP painted a solid economic picture as they indicated growth was materially higher over the past three years.

While US dollar sentiment improved after sweeping tax cuts were passed by Congress this week, the kiwi held its gains in very light trading ahead of the Christmas holiday.

ASB Bank head of institutional foreign exchange sales Tim Kelleher said trading was very quiet and the kiwi “is just sort of poised about where it is going to go to the in New Year and it would need to get above US71c to even consider it going higher”.

He expects light trading to continue now over the holiday period.

The kiwi was steady against the Aussie after it fell overnight on some strong offshore interest in the Australian dollar.

It traded at A90.97c from A90.96c as at 8am in Wellington and A91.39c late on Thursday. The kiwi traded at ¥79.55 from ¥79.46 and 4.6192 yuan from 4.6018 yuan.

It lifted to €59.27c from €59.04c and traded at 52.49 British pence from 52.42p.

New Zealand’s two-year swap rate was steady at 2.19 per cent.