The New Zealand dollar responded to foreign news stories today but was generally well up on the US52c area it explored for the first time in six years on Friday. By 5pm today the kiwi was buying US53.20c, down from US53.72c at 8am and up from US52.88c at 5pm on Friday. The kiwi raced up around a cent in the two hours before 11am on Saturday as equities surged in the United States on unconfirmed reports that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen his point person to combat the worst US economic crisis in 80 years. Reports that Obama will nominate Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, as his Treasury secretary triggered a rapid turn in markets that were wallowing after the week's heavy sell-off in equities. The recovery in the NZ dollar lasted until this morning. "We touched just briefly on the open up to US54c and then there was cloudy news around Citigroup," said Jake Soanes, head of financial market sales at Westpac. "Then kiwi was one-way traffic down to a low of US52.89c," he said. Intervention by the Reserve Bank of Australia has also been helping slow a decline in the Australian dollar. The NZ dollar was at A84.80c at 5pm today, down from A85.65c at 5pm on Friday. Against the euro, the kiwi was buying 0.4215 at 5pm from 0.4248 at Friday's local close. It was up against the Japanese currency to 50.70 yen from 49.95. The trade weighted index was up to 54.63 at 5pm from 54.63 at 5pm on Friday.

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