WELLINGTON (Dow Jones)--The New Zealand dollar was trading slightly lower against the U.S. dollar late Monday as the market waited for cues from the start of the U.S earnings season. ANZ Foreign Exchange Manager Murray Hindley said the Kiwi had been relatively range bound against the U.S. dollar. "Equity markets are pretty much on hold until we see what sort of results we are going to get," he said. He added offshore events continued to dictate the New Zealand dollar's movements but local data due to be released this week may also provide some cues. Retail trade data for May and the June quarter Consumer Price Index will be released later in the week by Statistics New Zealand. Westpac said in its weekly commentary that the global risk sentiment backdrop is mildly positive and expectations for this week's NZ economic data remain slightly upbeat. "Against that, the week-old New Zealand dollar rally is waning in strength and vulnerable to a pullback from the upper end of its multi-month range," the note said. It added that if CPI prints higher than the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's forecast of 0.5% it would be Kiwi-positive, while a weaker print may be written off as the calm before the introduction of an increased goods and services tax and emission trading scheme costs. The New Zealand dollar largely shrugged off the release of figures on the government's core operating deficit to the 11 months ended May 31 even though it showed tax revenue was slightly ahead of forecast and expenditure slightly lower than expected. New Zealand government bonds closed lower, while interest rate swaps were higher following similar moves in offshore markets. A local bond trader said swaps had moved higher on stronger equity markets and the "risk-on" environment, adding that the bond market remained quiet amid a dearth of key drivers. -By Lucy Craymer, Dow Jones Newswires; 64-4-471-5990; lucy.craymer@dowjones.com

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