Investing.com - The Australian dollar dropped against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, despite upbeat business confidence data from Australia, as a disappointing Chinese trade balance report weighed.
AUD/USD hit 0.7220 during late Asian trade, the pair's lowest since November 30; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.7232, sliding 0.50%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.7167, the low of November 30 and resistance at 0.7346, Monday's high.
The National Australia Bank reported on Tuesday that its business confidence index rose to 5 in November from a reading of 2 the previous month.
Elsewhere, official data showed that China's trade surplus narrowed to $54.10 billion last month from $61.64 billion in October. Analysts had expected the trade surplus to widen to $63.30 billion in November.
Chinese exports dropped by an annualized rate of 6.8% last month, compared to expectations for a 5.0% decline, while imports decreased by 8.7%.
China is Australia's biggest export partner.
Meanwhile, the greenback remained broadly supported after Friday's strong U.S. employment data fuelled further expectations that the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates for the first time since 2006 at its upcoming meeting on December 15-16.
The Aussie was lower against the euro, with EUR/AUD advancing 0.70% to 1.5016.