* Risk appetite supported after US shares hit 9-month highs
* Kiwi touches 10-month high vs dollar
* Investors await BoE, ECB policy meetings
By Masayuki Kitano
TOKYO, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The dollar was steady near 2009 lows against the euro and sterling on Wednesday, after a surprisingly strong U.S. housing report the previous day boosted hopes that the worst of the recession was over.
The dollar has slid broadly since March as riskier assets such as equities and oil rallied on improving economic data, eroding demand for the safe-haven greenback.
Better-than-expected U.S. second-quarter corporate results have helped reinforce optimism about the economic outlook, and the dollar has extended its losses this week as data highlighted an improvement in global manufacturing activity.
"When positive economic data comes out, people head towards taking risk," said a trader for a major Japanese bank.
Against this backdrop and due to firmness in commodities, currencies such as the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars have gotten a lift, the trader said.
Those three currencies all hit 10-month highs against the dollar this week.
The New Zealand dollar briefly scaled a peak of $0.6751 earlier on Wednesday, its highest since early October, before pulling back to $0.6727, down 0.2 percent from late U.S. trading on Tuesday.
Market players said the kiwi gained a boost after New Zealand's Fonterra Cooperative Group, the world's top dairy exporter, said international dairy prices surged at its latest auction, recovering after a recent run of falls.
The dollar dipped 0.1 percent against a basket of major currencies to 77.656, hovering near a 7-1/2-month low of 77.451 hit earlier this week.
The euro and sterling were little changed ahead of policy decisions by the European Central Bank and the Bank of England later this week.
Sterling was steady at $1.6933, hovering near a nine-month high of $1.7005 hit on Tuesday.
The euro was little changed at $1.4409, holding near a 7-1/2-month high of $1.4445 hit earlier in the week.
Data released on Tuesday showed that pending sales of existing U.S. homes rose for a fifth straight month in June, the first such advancing streak in six years, and that U.S. consumer spending rose in June.
A big drop in personal income, however, pointed to a slow recovery from the worst recession in decades.
The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index both hit nine-month highs on Tuesday. (Additional reporting by Shinji Kitamura and Satomi Noguchi; Editing by Chris Gallagher)