5 Mar 2015

NZ dollar breaks records

3:57 pm on 5 March 2015

The New Zealand dollar is having a record-breaking day, reaching new highs against the euro and Australian dollar.

The kiwi rose to intraday records of 0.6869 euro and 97.22 Australian cents.

ANZ senior foreign exchange strategist Sam Tuck said the New Zealand dollar was being driven more by the activities of the Australian and European central banks, than by changes in the domestic economy.

"In Australia, we've had weakness in quarter four (Q4) consumer price index (CPI) yesterday, and despite the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) leaving rates unchanged, the message from the RBA was quite definitively that the next move will still be a cut."

"In Europe, it is the forthcoming details of its quantitative easing programme that has driven [the] euro to new 11-year lows against the US dollar.

"The domestic situation has been stable and relatively optimistic for a while now," he said.

Get the RNZ app

for ad-free news and current affairs