WELLINGTON (Dow Jones)--The New Zealand dollar is trading higher late Wednesday after a spell of buying by offshore funds. "There was a flurry (of buying) earlier in the afternoon," Westpac Bank Senior Market Strategist Imre Speizer said. Risk appetite remains strong in the market, helping the Kiwi hold onto overnight gains following weakness Tuesday. The Kiwi spiked to US$0.7957, just below short-term resistance of US$0.7960, but failed to break through and pulled back to US$0.7928. Speizer said trading for the rest of the week is likely to be quiet as domestic players square positions before the long Easter weekend, which runs from Friday to Monday. With a rebound in risk appetite, the New Zealand dollar was relatively stable overnight, but the U.S. dollar saw broad-based weakness. However, the Kiwi lost ground to a broadly stronger euro, while it was range-bound against the pound sterling. Bank of New Zealand strategist Kymberly Martin said the kiwi-greenback pair will struggle to make significant upside progress this week as its run has taken it well above fundamental fair-value. "Although ahead of the Easter break, we (will) receive New Zealand credit card spending and ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence data tomorrow, along with the U.S. leading indicator in the Philadelphia Federal Reserve (manufacturing index) that will provide indications of how the U.S. recovery is developing," she said. New Zealand government bonds pushed lower while interest rate swaps were higher due to positioning ahead of the New Zealand Debt Management Office's tender Thursday, said a local bond trader. The trader said long-end interest rate swaps saw a larger move due to the number of longer maturity bonds on offer in the tender. The New Zealand DMO announced a NZ$1 billion tender earlier in the day. The office said it will sell NZ$200 million worth of bonds maturing April 2013, and NZ$800 million worth maturing March 2019. -By Arpan Mukherjee, Dow Jones Newswires; 64-4-471-5990; arpan.mukherjee@dowjones.com

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