Shares in East Otago-based Oceana Gold, the country's largest gold miner, briefly spiked 13c, or 3.6% to $3.73 at one point yesterday, as investors looked beyond bullion to gold producers.
The latest spike in the kiwi arrived as exporters have renewed calls for more Government assistance in finding new offshore markets.
The US dollar fell against most other major currencies on Wednesday after the US central bank Federal Reserve's chairman, Ben Bernanke, said the bank could resort to more monetary stimulus if the sluggish US economy weakened further.
The spiralling kiwi started the day at 8am at US83.74 and rose US1.32c to briefly touch the record US85.06c, its highest level since it was floated in March 1985, before easing back slightly.
Craigs Investment Partner's broker, Peter McIntyre, said further underpinning the kiwi's spike yesterday was the release of New Zealand's GDP data, which for the first quarter was 0.8% growth, well ahead of analysts average expectations of 0.4% growth.
Forsyth Barr broker, Peter Young, said the kiwi dollar jumped as soon as the GDP figure was released.
"This won't be making exporters happy as they watch the NZD/USD cross-rate hit a new post-float high of just under US85c," he said.
Mr McIntyre noted the Reserve Bank's interest-driving official cash rate (OCR) was at the bottom of its cycle, but the appreciating kiwi might force the Reserve Bank to consider hiking the OCR sooner than expected, before the end of the year.
He said Mr Bernanke's comments on the possibility of a third tranche, or "quantitative easing 3" multibillion cash injection meant it was likely that global metal prices and commodities would be driven higher.
