Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars slid lower against their U.S. counterpart on Wednesday, as oil prices moved back lower after oil worker strike in Kuwait ended.
AUD/USD declined 0.44% to 0.7778, pulling away from the previous session’s 10-month peak of 0.7825.
Oil prices declined as a three-day oil worker strike in Kuwait, which had cut the country’s crude production nearly in half, ended late Tuesday.
The end of the strike revived concerns sparked by the failure of major oil producers to reach an agreement on Sunday on a production freeze.
NZD/USD dropped 0.60% to trade at 0.7001, after hitting a 10-month high of 0.7055.
Meanwhile, sentiment on the greenback remained fragile after data on Tuesday showed that U.S. building permits fell unexpectedly by 7.7% in March to 1.086 million units, after a 2.2% drop the previous month to 1.177 million units.
U.S. housing starts declined by 8.8% in March to 1.089 million units after increasing by 6.9% to 1.194 million units in February.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was steady at 94.07.