Kiwi buoyant in busy trading day

The New Zealand dollar rose against the greenback after United States officials indicated it was likely they could print more money in a round of quantitative easing.

The kiwi recently traded at US81.68, up from US81.33c in the morning. It was at 73.20 on the Trade Weighted Index against major trading partners' currencies.

HiFX senior dealer Michael Johnston said the kiwi had the busiest trading day it had seen in some time.

"It got pulled up to recent highs after the US Federal Reserve minutes from their last interest rate meeting showed they were closer to quantitative easing which caught the market by surprise and the US dollar weakened as consequence," Johnston said.

"When we had the Chinese HSBC Flash Manufacturing PMI data a lot worse than expected, the kiwi had a quick drop straight back down once again."

On the crosses, the New Zealand dollar was last at 77.67 Australian cents, up from A77.34c in the morning, and it rose to 64.19 Japanese yen from 63.81 yen. The kiwi rose to 65.14 euro cents from 64.91 euro cents earlier and was at 51.38 pence, up from 51.22 pence.

Johnston said that overnight markets were looking to more manufacturing data due out, from Europe and the US alongside German GDP data. He expected the kiwi to trade between US81.20c and US82.30c with a bias towards the lower side overnight.

- © Fairfax NZ News