The New Zealand dollar held gains in local trading as the country's high interest rates relative to the rest of the world continue to attract investors.
The kiwi traded at 77.72 US cents at 5pm in Wellington, little changed from 77.80 cents at 8am, and up from 77.56 cents on Monday, The trade-weighted index advanced to 79.07 from 78.86 on Monday.
New Zealand has been a favoured destination for investors with the Reserve Bank's bias to higher interest rates and annual economic growth of about 3.5 per cent.
This has stoked demand for the local currency as major central banks run extraordinarily loose monetary policies, including quantitative easing programmes to inject life into their respective economies.
The yield on New Zealand's 10-year government bonds was recently at 3.71 per cent, compared to 2.87 per cent in Australia, 0.33 per cent in Japan and 2.19 per cent in the US.
"Both in an absolute and relative sense, demand from a yield point of view continues," said Robert Rennie, chief currency strategist at Westpac in Sydney.
"The kiwi's stretched against the Aussie dollar and I think it's getting stretched on a number of other crosses, but there isn't a compelling argument that says FX markets are about to turn against it."
The local currency was trading near a nine-year high 95.62 Australian cents at 5pm in Wellington from 95.40 cents on Monday, and some traders have been eyeing the possibility of the currencies reaching parity in the New Year.
The kiwi rose to 93.64 yen, having touched a seven-year high in Northern Hemisphere trading, from 93.47 yen on Monday. It gained to 64.03 euro cents from 63.65 cents, to 50.08 British pence from 49.82 pence, and to 4.8402 Chinese yuan from 4.8262 yuan.
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