Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars moved lower against their U.S. counterpart on Wednesday, as demand for the greenback strengthened ahead of the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting, due later in the day.
AUD/USD slid 0.35% to 0.7453.
The greenback regained some ground as investors turned their attention to the upcoming minutes of the Fed’s April meeting, with hopes of further indications on the pace of future rate hikes.
The U.S. dollar had broadly weakened recently following a string of revelations surrounding the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in November’s U.S. presidential election and reports that Donald Trump attempted to interfere with the judicial process.
Earlier Wednesday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said construction work done fell 0.7% in the first quarter, disappointing expectations for a 0.2% slip.
Construction work done increased by 0.6% in the last quarter of 2016, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated 0.2% downtick.
NZD/USD fell 0.20% to trade at 0.6998, off the previous session’s one-month high of 0.7048.
Investors were also still digesting the Manchester terrorist attack that killed 22 people late Monday evening.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was steady at 97.34.