The New Zealand dollar has fallen against the US dollar but is up against the Australian currency.
Bancorp Treasury senior client advisor Peter Cavanaugh said the story was all about Australia on Tuesday.
He said Standard & Poor's warned the Australian Senate to ensure it passed the Budget in total because they were necessary cut-backs for Australia.
Mr Cavanaugh said minutes from a Reserve Bank of Australia meeting which took place earlier this month were released and they reinforced that growth would be sluggish and there would be limited inflation. He said the minutes also indicated concern at a drop-off in mining investment and the effect the Budget spending cuts would have on economic growth.
Mr Cavanaugh said the Reserve Bank of Australia's Deputy Governor said in a speech that further falls in the Australian dollar would help achieve balanced economic growth and the fall-off in resources could lead to a reduced inflow of investment flows into Australia.
He said all of that could lead to the lower Australian dollar that the Reserve Bank is hoping for.
At about 5pm on Tuesday the kiwi was trading at 86.13 US cents, 92.68 Australian cents, 51.22 British pence, 0.6281 euro, 87.45 yen and 5.37 renminbi.
NZ sharemarket down
New Zealand shares were weaker, the benchmark Top 50 Index falling 33 points to 5135.
Murray & Co director of wealth management Johnny Cochrane said there appeared to be some re-weighting of fund managers' portfolios going on.
He said it was primarily driven by some of the larger capital stocks such as Ryman, Telecom and Fletcher Building falling.
Ryman shares fell 26 cents to $8.44, Telecom shares shed 4 cents to $2.69, Fletcher Building dropped 10 cents to $9 and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare sank 8 cents to $4.22.
Units in Kiwi Income Property Trust rose half a cent to $1.16.
The trust, which will probably be a company by then, will pay investors 6.5 cents per share for the year ending March 2015 compared with this year's 6.4 cents per unit payout.
Its distributable profit rose nearly 25 percent to $76.3 million for the year ended March.
