Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars declined against their U.S. counterpart on Monday, after the release of mixed Australian economic reports and as Friday’s upbeat U.S. employment data continued to support the greenback.
AUD/USD dropped 0.65% to 0.7631.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said that building approvals increased by 3.1% in February, exceeding expectations for a 2.0% gain. Building approvals declined by 6.6% in January, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated 7.5% drop.
A separate report showed that Australia’s retail sales were flat in February, compared to expectations for a 0.4% rise, after an uptick of 0.3% in January.
NZD/USD slid 0.32% to trade at 0.6878.
Meanwhile, the greenback remained mildly supported after the Labor Department reported on Friday that the U.S. economy added 215,000 jobs last month, ahead of economists’ expectations for jobs growth of 205,000.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 5% from an eight-year low of 4.9% as more people entered the labor market.
Average hourly earnings rose by seven cents last month after falling two cents in February.
However, the U.S. dollar’s gains were limited as the upbeat data did little to alter expectations that the Federal Reserve will remain cautious about hiking interest rates this year.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was steady at 94.64, still close to last week’s five-month low of 94.30.