Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars gained ground against their U.S. counterpart on Thursday, after the release of upbeat Australian employment data and as the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s July meeting gave no clear indication on the timing of future rate hikes.
AUD/USD advanced 0.68% to 0.7708.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday that the number of employed people rose by 26,200 in July, blowing past expectations for an increase of 11,000. The number of employed people rose by 10,800 in June, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated gain of 7,900.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 5.7% last month from 5.8% in June. Analysts had expected the unemployment rate to remain unchanged in July.
NZD/USD climbed 0.55% to trade at 0.7291.
Meanwhile, the greenback came under pressure after the minutes of the Fed’s July policy meeting, released on Wednesday, showed that policymakers were still divided over the need to raise interest rates this year.
"Some ... members anticipated that economic conditions would soon warrant taking another step in removing policy accommodation," the Fed said in the minutes.
However, several policymakers said they wanted to "leave their policy options open."
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down 0.22% at 94.48, the lowest since June 24.