NZ dollar down in quiet trading

The New Zealand dollar fell against the greenback today, with limited trading in a quiet market.

The kiwi recently traded at US82.68c, down from US82.90c earlier. It was at 73.80 on the Trade Weighted Index of major trading partners' currencies, down from 73.91 in the morning.

"It was another quiet day in a fairly illiquid session because of the lack of an Australian market so we've seen the kiwi drift off," HiFX currency trader Alex Hill said.

"We had these Chinese PMI numbers out slightly worse than expected [The MSCI Asia Pacific Index showed a 0.7 per cent decline]. The market is just taking a little bit of heat off the kiwi but it was really a very quiet day. The key now will probably be the state of the aussie-US cross, with the Australian cash rate announcement tomorrow."

On the crosses, the kiwi was at 79.94 Australian cents, up from A79.83c. It was at 64.48 euro cents, down marginally from 64.49 euro cents earlier. The kiwi recently traded at 64.40 Japanese yen, down from 64.58 yen earlier. It fell to 51.26 pence from 51.27p earlier.

Hill expected the kiwi to trade between US82.20c and US83.20c overnight with a bias towards the downside.

- © Fairfax NZ News