SYDNEY: The Australian and New Zealand dollars nestled near their highs for the year on Friday as the prospect of further aggressive policy easing in most of the developed world boosted risk sentiment and stock markets.

The Aussie held at $0.6807, after hitting a nine-month top of $0.6839 overnight. It was up 1.5% for the week and aiming for a $0.6871 peak from December last year.

It was up 2.5% for the week on the Japanese yen at 96.78 , amid renewed interest in carry trades.

The kiwi dollar stood at $0.6234, having reached as far as $0.6269 overnight. That left it 1.3% higher for the week, but still short of the August top at $0.6298.

The commodity-heavy Antipodeans are heavily leveraged toward global growth and typically do well during easing cycles.

The Aussie got an extra lift from an upbeat jobs report that saw markets scale back the chance of near-term rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of Australia.