The Australian and New Zealand dollars moved lower against their U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, after the release of downbeat business confidence data from Australia and as renewed expectations for 2016 U.S. rate hike continued to boost the greenback.
AUD/USD slipped 0.22% to 0.7634, off the previous session’s three-week highs of 0.7673.
Earlier Tuesday, the National Australia Bank said its business confidence index fell to 4 in July from a reading of 6 the previous month.
Meanwhile, the greenback remained broadly supported after Friday’s upbeat U.S. jobless claims report boosted expectations for a rate hike by the Federal Reserve before the end of the year.
NZD/USD edged down 0.21% to trade at 0.7123.
The commodity currencies also weakened as oil prices resumed their downward trend on Tuesday, as global supply glut concerns overshadowed rumours of a potential agreement among exporters to freeze output.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.12% at 96.41, not far from Friday’s one-week high of 96.50.
