By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON--The New Zealand dollar is sharply lower late Monday but has retraced some of Friday night's losses, as the Asian session's reaction to U.S. jobs data was more muted. ASB head of FX Institutional Sales New Zealand Tim Kelleher said that as the full unemployment rate remained at 7.6%, above the Federal Reserve's forecasts, the trader reaction during the Asian session was more muted than it had been Friday. He added that a retracement in the U.S. dollar might also be seen once the U.S. market reopens, as liquidity had been tight overnight Friday due to a public holiday Thursday. However, the U.S. dollar had surged Friday night after the headline figure in the non-farm payrolls data saw job numbers rise 195,000, above the 165,000 expected increase In late Wellington trading, the New Zealand dollar was at US$0.7737 compared with US$0.7814 late Friday and at A$0.8529 compared with A$0.8552. Mr. Kelleher said direction for the currency markets was coming from offshore, so the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand house price data had been largely ignored. Data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, or Reinz, showed Monday that the national median home price totaled 394,000 New Zealand dollars (US$304,000) in June, up 0.5% from May and up 5.9% on year. The April 2015 bond yield ended up 2.5 basis points at 2.98%, while the April 2023 bond yield ended down 1.5 basis points at 4.30%.

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