By Cecile Lefort and Rebecca Howard
SYDNEY/WELLINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The Australian and New Zealand dollars chalked up losses on Tuesday as a selloff in global stocks sent investors to safe-haven assets such as the yen and government bonds.
The Australian dollar AUD=D4 eased to $0.7034, from $0.7085 early, pulling away from a one-month top of $0.7242 touched last week.
Heavy buying of the yen dealt a blow to the Aussie which skidded a full yen under 81 AUDJPY=R . A week ago it had been up above 86 yen and was now pulling closer to 79.17, a level last seen mid-2012.
Adding to worries about global growth and sliding commodity prices, investors became concerned about European bank debt. Stocks of Deutsche Bank DBKGn.DE dived nearly 10 percent on Monday while the cost of insuring against default in the sector surged to two-year highs.
Some analysts were surprised the Aussie had not dropped further.
"We saw stocks falling, oil prices sliding and emerging markets credit widening, yet the Aussie managed to remain fairly stable overnight," said Dan Been, a senior FX strategist at ANZ Bank. He cited the absence of Asian investors for Lunar New Year as a possible reason for the Aussie's resilience.
Support was found around 70 cents and a break would open the way to a retracement to a seven-year low of $0.6827.
The New Zealand dollar NZD=D4 slipped to $0.6590, continuing to edge away from the one-month high of $0.6752 hit last week.
With little economic data domestically and a public holiday on Monday, the Kiwi was mainly responding to global conditions.
"NZD and AUD are so far relatively staid in the face of fear....NZD remained stable in the face of 'risk off'," ANZ said analysts in a research note.
Demand for higher-rated sovereign debt sent Australian government bond futures to multi-month highs, with the three-year bond contract YTTc1 up 12 ticks at 98.270.
The 10-year contract YTCc1 leapt 17 ticks to a nine-month peak of 97.5850. The 20-year contract YXXc1 jumped 14.5 ticks to 97.0300.
New Zealand government bonds 0#NZTSY= also gained, sending yields 13.5 basis points lower at the long end of the curve.