Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars were lower against their U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, after the release of downbeat data from Australia and New Zealand and as the Reserve Bank of Australia left interest rates on hold.
AUD/USD eased 0.08% to 0.7600.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Tuesday that the trade deficit widened to A$3.410 billion in February from A$3.156 billion in January, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated deficit of A$2.937 billion.
Analysts had expected the trade deficit to narrow to A$2.600 billion in February.
At the same time, the RBA left interest rates unchanged at 2.00% in a widely expected movem but signaled the possibility for additional rate cuts in the future.
RBA Governor Glenn Stevens said that "continued low inflation would provide scope for easier policy, should that be appropriate to lend support to demand."
NZD/USD dropped 0.59% to trade at 0.6794.
Also Tuesday, data showed that the NZIER business confidence index fell to 2 in the first quarter from a reading of 15 in the three months to December.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was steady at 94.61, still close to last week’s five-and-a-half month low of 94.30.