Wellington, Jan 19 NZPA - The New Zealand dollar briefly stretched above US74c early today and edged up to its highest level against the euro in nearly 22 months, on a relatively calm night with United States markets closed for a public holiday.

BNZ Capital senior strategist Danica Hampton said rumoured US dollar selling from sovereign accounts meant most currencies ticked higher against the greenback overnight.

Solid NZ dollar demand was also noted from a variety of local accounts, she said.

Around 8am today, the kiwi was buying US73.96c from US73.57c at 5pm. The NZ dollar also peaked at 0.5145 euro, according to Reuters data, easing to 0.5137 euro by the local open, from 0.5120 at 5pm.

For today, Ms Hampton expected the NZ dollar to "tread water within familiar ranges" against the greenback.

She suspected dips would be limited to around US73.60c, with headwinds ahead of US74.40c.

Reuters reported that persistent concerns about Greece's ballooning fiscal deficit kept the euro under selling pressure in subdued trade.

As Greece's debt burden highlighted the fragility of some euro zone members, investors awaited comments from a meeting of the 16-country bloc's finance ministers.

The ministers were due to discuss the unreliability of Greek statistics, and were said to be running out of patience with Athens as it had repeatedly misled its euro zone peers about the size of its budget deficit.

The NZ dollar strengthened to 67.05 yen at the local open from 66.87 at 5pm, and edged down to A79.80c against the Australian dollar at 8am from A79.88c at the local close. The trade weighted index rose to 66.76 at 8am from 66.61 at 5pm.