Investing.com - The Australian dollar was higher against its U.S. counterpart on Monday, but gains were expected to remain limited after China unexpectedly lowered rates and the greenback remained broadly supported.
AUD/USD hit 0.7264 during late Asian trade, the session high; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.7259, up 0.46%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.7179, the low of October 22 and resistance at 0.7340, the high of October 16.
The Australian dollar was hit after the Popular Bank of China unexpectedly cut interest rates on Friday. It was the sixth rate cut since last November, amid efforts by authorities to shore up slowing growth in the world’s second largest economy.
Separately, the greenback remained supported after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the ECB had discussed lowering the deposit rate at its meeting last Thursday and added that that the bank could enlarge its asset purchase program or speed up bond purchases.
The comments underlined the diverging monetary policy stance between the Federal Reserve and central banks in the rest of the world. The Fed is currently expected to start hiking interest rates sometime in early 2016.
The Aussie was fractionally higher against the New Zealand dollar, with AUD/NZD easing up 0.09% to 1.0700.