Investing.com - The New Zealand dollar rallied over 1% against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand left interest rates on hold, citing strong economic growth.
NZD/USD hit 0.7389 during late Asian trade, the pair's highest since March 9; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.7408, rallying 1.58%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.7249, the low of March 10 and resistance at 0.7519, the high of March 6.
In a widely expected move, the RBNZ held its benchmark interest rate at 3.50% and signalled that borrowing costs should remain unchanged through 2017.
Commenting on the decision, RBNZ Graeme Wheeler said "Our situation is quite different from some of those countries that have changed monetary policy or cut interest rates."
The economy is "growing at 3.25%, perhaps 3.5% and we're projecting it to continue to grow at those sorts of rates over the next two years," he added.
Meanwhile, the greenback weakened as investors eyed data on U.S. retail sales and initial jobless claims due later in the day, after the currency rallied broadly on the back of last week's strong employment report.
The kiwi was also higher against the euro, with EUR/NZD dropping 0.79% to 1.4343.