Strong retail sales and profit-taking in the sharemarket helped drive the New Zealand dollar up half a cent from its open today and over 1 US cent from its value in late local trading on Friday.
The head of external foreign exchange sales at ASB Bank, Tim Kelleher, said the week ahead is bound to be interesting for the currency with the global dairy trade auction being held tomorrow night.
At 5.20pm today, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 79.66 US cents, 90.63 Australian, 50.67 British pence, 0.6345 euro, 92.28 yen and 4.88 renminbi.
The New Zealand sharemarket was mixed, with the benchmark Top 50 Index closing 6 points higher on 5490.
Green Cross Health rose almost 13 percent or by 25 cents to $2.20 after signing an agreement to acquire Access Homehealth.
Delegat Group rose 10 cents to $4.70, following some stronger than expected retail sales data, led up by food-related sectors including beverages.
Xero rose 5 cents to $17.15 ahead of its first half result to be issued later this week.
Pacific Edge fell 3 cents to 79 cents, The Warehouse was 4 cents lower to $3.24 and Contact Energy was down 3 cents to $6.22.
