The kiwi more than rebounded from Thursday's decline on Friday and rose to 64.45 US cents, as stronger US equity markets saw global investors buy high-yielding currencies.
But the senior economist at BNZ Capital, Craig Ebert, says the stronger dollar threatens New Zealand's recovery.
The NZX 50 index rose 6.7 points, or 0.24%, to close at 2808 on turnover of $73 million.
Telecom was up 2c to $2.71, Fletcher Building down 1c to $6.83 and Contact Energy down 8c at $5.83.
Air New Zealand was unchanged at 91c, while Sky City Entertainment Group rose 10c to $2.78 and Fisher and Paykel Healthcare 5c to $2.96.
Aussie market scrapes into positive territory
Across the Tasman, the Australian sharemarket scraped into positive territory despite profit-taking from three previous trading days of bull runs that took their lead from Wall Street.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed up 5.2 points, or 0.13%, at 4000.8, while the broader All Ordinaries gained 5.1, or 0.13%, to 3992.9.
In currency markets at 5pm Thursday the NZ dollar was at 64.45 US cents, 80.55 Australian, 39.33 pence, 60.35 Yen and .4565 euro; the TWI stood at 60.61,
