* Aussie, kiwi dollars off 1-year highs hit earlier
* Aussie falls after retail sales data stirs rate caution
* Euro hovers near 2009 high, targets $1.4550 and above $1.46
By Charlotte Cooper
TOKYO, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The dollar's broad slide paused
after it hit its lowest in a year against the Australian and New
Zealand dollars on Wednesday, but it held near its 2009 low on
the euro, as investors sold the low-yielding greenback in a
renewed shift to riskier assets.
The dollar also remained vulnerable near the year's low
against a basket of currencies, with talk of model fund selling
on the greenback, while the yen recovered ground after touching
its lowest in a month on the Australian dollar.
Falling regional shares and U.S. stock futures <SPc1> tamed
risk-seeking moves but traders and analysts said the dollar was
now within sight of some important support levels on the charts,
including its July low of 91.73 yen, and $1.4550 and beyond
against the euro.
"It's largely technically related dollar selling across the
board," said Sue Trinh, currency strategist at RBC Capital
Markets in Sydney.
"Gold's rally through $1,000 has brought a whole lot of
systematic model-related U.S. dollar selling out of the
woodwork."
The dollar index <.DXY> shed 1 percent on Tuesday to hit a
one-year low of 77.047, after breaking major chart support.
For graphic of the dollar index's technical levels, click:
http://r.reuters.com/caw55d
Sentiment towards the dollar took a knock on talk that China
is concerned about U.S. macro-economic policies and a United
Nations report calling for a new world reserve using several
currencies. []
That fuelled speculation foreign central banks might be
diversifying reserves away from the dollar to other currencies,
or perhaps even gold <XAU=>.
Masamichi Koike, joint general manager of the trading group
at Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, said the market was turning back to
trades based on economic recovery hopes that started in March
and was playing down the potential risks to recovery highlighted
in the past couple of months by sharp falls in Chinese shares.
"The dollar is set to weaken with euro/dollar eyeing the
December high above $1.47," Koike said.
"But given the view that the market is only returning to the
previous risk asset rally which had already lifted asset prices
to 80 percent out of 100 percent potential, the room for the
dollar to slide from here is not that big, either."
Spot gold rose as far as $1,007.45 <XAU=> on Tuesday while
the CRB commodities index gained 2.02 percent <.CRB>. All had
helped the high-flying Australian dollar <AUD=D4> push higher.
It briefly hit a fresh one-year peak of $0.8662 and touched
its highest in almost a month at 80.00 yen <AUDJPY=R>.
But softer-than-expected retail sales then took the wind out
of its sails with the data seen as lessening the chance of a
hike as early as October, and it slipped 0.3 percent on the day
to $0.8593. []
The New Zealand dollar, another currency favoured as a risk
trade against the low-yielding dollar and yen, hit a one-year
high at $0.6993 <NZD=D4> before slipping to stand 0.1 percent
down on the day at $0.6951 and 64.16 yen <NZDJPY=R>.
Its peak comes ahead of a Reserve Bank of New Zealand
meeting on Thursday to decide on monetary policy, with
expectations it will repeat that it wants to keep rates low well
into 2010.
The euro <EUR=> trimmed earlier gains and stood at $1.4489,
up 0.1 percent on the day. It rose 1 percent on Tuesday when it
reached as far as $1.4535 at one stage, the highest this year.
Options traders said options triggers were set at $1.4550
while chart targets were seen at $1.4620, a 61.8 percent
Fibonacci retracement of its fall from above $1.60 in July 2008
to its October low near $1.2330.
For a chart on euro/dollar's technicals, click:
http://r.reuters.com/qev55d
The dollar was holding its ground for the moment against the
low-yielding yen, after shedding 0.8 percent against it on
Tuesday. It was steady on the day at 92.38 yen <JPY=>.
Traders said the yen's progress against the dollar was
slowed by its losses on crosses. But the market is eyeing the
dollar's July low of 91.73 yen as the break point for a test of
automatic sell orders expected around 91.50 yen.
A launch expected on Wednesday of 12 mutual funds or
"toushin" by Nomura Asset Management, which will invest in U.S.
high-yield bonds, was expected to support cross/yen pairs, a
trader for a Japan trust bank said.
Later on Wednesday, the Bank of England starts it two-day
monetary policy meeting and is widely expected to keep rates
unchanged. But there is an outside chance it might decide to
expand its quantitative easing programme. []
Also due later is the Federal Reserve's Beige book, a
summary of economic conditions in 12 Fed districts. Data on
Tuesday showed U.S. consumer credit fell by a record $21.6
billion, leaving analysts worried about the pace of an economic
recovery.
(Additional reporting by Anirban Nag in Sydney, Satomi Noguchi
and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; Editing by Chris Gallagher)
