Kiwi lifts after RBNZ rate call

The New Zealand dollar rose against the greenback today after the Official Cash Rate was held steady and ahead of announcements from the US Federal Reserve.

The kiwi recently traded at US82.16 cents, up from US81.94 cents this morning.

It was 72.80 on the Trade Weighted Index against major trading partners' currencies, up from 72.75 in the morning.

Direct FX currency adviser Sam Coxhead said there had been little reaction to Dr Alland Bollard's final OCR announcement.

"The big focus coming overnight is the Federal Reserve with their monetary policy announcement," Coxhead said.

"The market is fairly aggressively pricing action from the Fed, so to my mind the risk is that the Federal Reserve undelivers, which could see a bit of a paring back in risk assets of which the kiwi dollar is one."

On the crosses, the kiwi was at 78.41 Australian cents, up from A78.35c in the morning. It was at 63.59 euro cents, slightly up from 63.52c earlier.

The kiwi recently traded at 50.99 pence, up from 50.87 pence this morning. It was at 63.87 Japanese yen, up from 63.77 yen in the morning.

Coxhead expected the kiwi to trade between US81c to US83c overnight, biased towards the downside.

- © Fairfax NZ News