Australia’s dollar rose after touching a one-week low as rising domestic stocks revived demand for the currency. New Zealand’s dollar fell. Australia’s currency also gained as a measure of shipping costs for commodities yesterday rose to the highest since Oct. 9. Gains in the currency were limited before a report this week that economists say will show the unemployment rate climbed to the highest since April 2006. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand may reduce interest rates from a record low 3.5 percent the same day, according to Bloomberg News survey. “The equity market has recovered nicely after a big sell- off at the open, helping the Australian dollar,” said Jim Vrondas, manager of corporate business at online foreign- exchange dealer OzForex Ltd. in Sydney. The currency “will likely face stiff resistance around the 64-cent mark,” he said. Australia’s dollar fell as low as 63.07 cents, the weakest since March 4, before trading 0.5 percent higher at 63.80 cents as of 2:21 p.m. in Sydney from 63.49 cents late in Asia yesterday. The currency rose 0.3 percent to 63.01 yen. New Zealand’s dollar slid as low as 49.15 U.S. cents, also the lowest since March 4, and traded at 49.66 cents from 49.76 in Asia yesterday. It bought 49.08 yen from 49.24. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index was little changed at 3,155.10 after earlier sliding 1 percent. The Baltic Dry index rose for a seventh day yesterday advancing 37 points to 2,262, signaling there may be higher demand for commodities which account for more than half of Australia’s exports. Interest Rates The Australian and New Zealand dollars earlier weakened as U.S. stocks yesterday extended the worst weekly slump in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since November, after Warren Buffett said the economy “has fallen off a cliff.” New Zealand’s dollar may extend losses before its central bank meets March 12 to lower rates by half a percentage point to 3 percent, according to six of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Four forecast a 0.75 percentage point cut and three expect a one percentage point reduction. Australia’s central bank held rates unchanged at 3.25 percent on March 3. The “real vulnerability” for New Zealand’s dollar is if it falls through 49.10 cents, “opening up further downside towards 47.50,” said Amy Auster, head of foreign-exchange and international economics research at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Melbourne. Higher interest rates in Australia and New Zealand, compared with as low as zero in the U.S. and 0.1 percent in Japan, attract investors to the South Pacific nations’ assets. The risk is currency market moves will erase profits. Jobs, Sentiment Australia’s dollar earlier fell after reports showed business confidence held near an all-time low in February and job-vacancy advertisements dropped by a record. Jobs advertised in newspapers and on the Internet dropped 10 percent to an average of 161,583 a week in February, according to an ANZ report in Melbourne today. That was the biggest decline since the bank began collecting Internet figures in 1999. Advertisements plunged 40 percent from a year earlier. The number of people employed probably fell by 20,000 and the unemployment rate likely rose to 5 percent in February, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before the March 12 reports. Australian government bonds fell for the first day in three. The yield on 10-year notes rose eight basis points, or 0.08 percentage point, to 4.20 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The price of the 5.25 percent security due March 2019 slipped 0.67, or A$6.70 per A$1,000 face amount, to 108.55. New Zealand’s two-year swap rate, a fixed payment made to receive floating rates, fell to 3.16 percent from 3.18 yesterday.

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