Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars slipped lower against their U.S. counterpart on Monday, as the greenback mildly recovered from recent losses although it continued to hover near three-year lows against a basket of major currencies.
AUD/USD edged down 0.18% to 0.8094, just off Friday's 32-month peak of 0.8137.
The greenback found some support after data on Friday showed that U.S. durable goods orders increased by 2.9% in December and that real consumer spending advanced 3.8% in the fourth quarter.
However, sentiment on the U.S. dollar remained vulnerable after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last week that a weaker dollar was positive for American trade.
President Donald Trump contradicted Mnuchin's position by defedning the need for a strong currency, but traders fear the White House may use currency policy as a tool to get better trade deals with other countries.
NZD/USD slipped 0.15% to trade at 0.7339, still close to last week's four-month high of 0.7438.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was almost unchanged at 88.92 by 02:05 a.m. ET (06:05 GMT), not far from last Thursday's three-year low of 88.25.