Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars slipped lower against their U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, despite the release of strong Australian buildng approvals data, as the greenback remained broadly underpinned by expectations for a U.S. rate hike.
AUD/USD eased 0.08% to 0.7562.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said building approvals increased by 11.3% in July, beating expectations for a 0.5% fall. Building approvals dropped 4.7% in June, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated 2.9% decline.
NZD/USD edged down 0.11% to trade at 0.7244.
The greenback remained broadly supported after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday that the case for U.S. interest rate hikes has “strengthened” in recent months due to improvements in the labor market and to expectations for solid economic growth.
However, she did not indicate when the Fed would act, saying that higher interest rates will depend on incoming economic data.
Speaking shortly afterwards, Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer said Yellen’s speech was “consistent” with expectations for possibly two more rate hikes this year, opening the door to a September hike.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.23% at 95.75, not far from Monday’s two-week high of 95.81.