Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars moved lower against their U.S. counterpart on Thursday, pulling back from highs hit earlier when the Federal Reserve announced a highly-anticipated rate hike.
AUD/USD fell 0.21% to 0.7694, off Wednesday’s two-and-a-half week high of 0.7722.
At the end of its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, the Fed increased interest rates by 25 basis points to 1.00% from 0.75%, as expected.
The greenback weakened broadly following the decision, as the central bank’s stance was seen as less hawkish than expected by sticking to projections of three total rate hikes in 2017 and not four as some traders had hoped for.
NZD/USD dropped 0.55% to trade at 0.7008, after hitting a more than one-week peak of 0.7050 in the previous session.
Earlier Thursday, Statistics New Zealand reported that the country’s gross domestic product rose 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2016, confouding expectations for an increase of 0.7%.
Year-on-year, New Zealand’s GDP rose 2.7% in the last quarter, disappointing expectations for a growth rate of 3.1%.
In other news, the Bank of Japan chose to leave its monetary policy unchanged at the end of its policy meeting on Thursday, underscoring the diverging policy paths of major global central banks.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was little changed at 100.39, the lowest since February 9.