NZ dollar unsettled by sell-off in London

The New Zealand dollar was under pressure in early trading after being sold-off overnight in London.

The kiwi was at 83.93 US cents at 8am, little changed from 83.94 cents at 5.25pm on Tuesday. But it slumped from 84.19 cents to about 83.75 cents before recovering in overnight trading.

There appeared to have been a large kiwi-euro flow in London trading, Tim Kelleher, head of institutional FX sales at ASB Institutional said.

“Kiwi has failed three or four times now above 84.25 cents so it is looking a bit heavy,” he said.

Traders ultimately decided that US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke did not say anything particularly new in a speech yesterday.

There was a general tone of “risk-off” in the market this morning, Mr Kelleher said.

“There has been talk of Fitch downgrading the US and the European Central Bank is saying the exchange rate is too high. It’s been a fairly active start to the day already,” he said.

There is little local data due today and traders are looking ahead to Australian employment data on Thursday and Consumer Price Index data in New Zealand on Friday.

The kiwi was little changed at 62.91 euro and was at 52.19 British pence at 8am, down slightly from 52.26 pence on Tuesday.

It was at 74.40 yen, down from 75.20 yen and was at 79.41 Australian cents from 79.70 on Tuesday.

The trade-weighted index was at 75.21 from 75.42.