Kiwi firms

Press, 31 August 1989, Page 38

Kiwi firms

Wellington The New Zealand dollar traded quietly yesterday and firmed to close at U 559.12/ 22c. It had closed at 58.93/59.03 on Tuesday. The kiwi opened yesterday at 59.30/40 and traded in a narrow range from 59.10 to 59.35. There was very little emphasis on the local currency. The market was focused on the Australian and United States dollars, a dealer said.

The Australian dollar ended one point up at U576.76/83C from its 76.75/82 close on Tuesday. It opened yesterday virtually steady at 76.75/83.

The Australian dollar came back well bid yesterday after Tuesday’s knee-jerk reaction to its Moody’s Investor Service debt downgrading to AA--2 when it had dropped 40 points in as many seconds. However, the kiwi came under pressure yesterday on the Australian crossrate, slipping to Aust77.osc from 77.83 at Tuesday's close and opening at 77.22. On other crosses at close, the kiwi fell slightly to 1.1458 Deutsche marks from 1.1488 at opening and to 37.28 p from 37.39, to 84.61 yen from 84.82 and to 0.9864 Swiss francs from 0.9898.

The Reserve Bank tradeweighted index was 61.4 at 3 p.m. compared with 61.8 at Tuesday’s close. A week ago it was 61.7 and four weeks ago 60.5. In Sydney yesterday widespread profit-taking eroded strong overnight gains in the Australian dollar but the currency still finished half a United States cent higher than Tuesday’s close. The unit ended at U 576.65/ 72c, up from the previous finish at 76.03/10 but down from 77.04 reached in early Wellington trade and a peak in Australia of 77.01 which was touched just before noon.

The Australian dollar lifted to $NZ1.2934/64 from $NZ1.2872/2902 previously. In New York on Tuesday (local time) the United States dollar closed sharply lower in light trading, pushed down by technical selling despite a large upward revision of growth in American secondquarter gross national product (GNP). The dollar closed at 1.9355/65 Deutsche marks, down from Monday’s finish of 1.9630/40, and at 142.95/00 yen, down from 144.53/60. Second-quarter GNP growth was revised to a real annualised rate of 2.7 per cent from the initial estimate Of 1.7%.