Last week (w/c 22 September) was a disaster of a week for the New Zealand dollar.
Not only was the Kiwi the weakest among the major currencies for four days on the trot, it suffered the verbal intervention of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand governor and the prime minister.
Governor Graeme Wheeler said the currency's exchange rate was 'unjustified and unsustainable', and that its undue strength could warrant intervention by the Royal Bank of New Zealand.
A few days later prime minister John Key said he would like to see the Kiwi at US$0.65 - it was above US$0.78 at the time.
To top that, financial data released by the RBNZ today (29 September) revealed that it had already intervened, selling more than half a billion NZ dollars in August.
The US dollar led the field last week.
It did not start too well, adding to the losses it had made in the previous week, but it turned a corner on Wednesday after Federal Reserve chairperson, Janet Yellen, seemed to change tack with her forward guidance to investors.
Having in the past told them repeatedly that it would be a 'considerable time' before interest rates begin to rise, she warned that the time might be less considerable than she had previously implied. Her comments helped the US dollar to become the top-performer among the dozen most actively-traded currencies for the week, the month and the quarter.
Sterling had a reasonably gentle ride, losing a cent and a quarter to the US dollar, holding steady against the yen and moving higher against everything else.
It added about a cent against the euro and the Swiss franc and a full nine cents against the Kiwi. None of the commodity-related currencies had a great deal of fun: the Canadian dollar was down by two and a half cents and the Aussie fell three and a half cents.
