Investing.com – The Australian dollar was steady against its U.S. counterpart on Monday, while the New Zealand dollar moved lower after disappointing local inflation expectations data and as markets were still digesting the latest U.S. jobs report.
AUD/USD was steady at 0.7648
The Labor Department said on Friday that the U.S. economy added 261,000 jobs in October, falling short of forecasts for 315,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%, its lowest level since December 2000.
However, some investors believe the data was distorted by the effects of recent hurricanes in the U.S.
Shortly after the report, the greenback was lifted by upbeat U.S. factory orders and ISM non-manufacturing PMI data.
NZD/USD slid 0.33% to trade at 0.6884 after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand said inflation expectations for the next two year ticked down to 2.0% in the third quarter from 2.1% in the three months to June.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.08% at 94.91 by 02:15 a.m. ET (06:15 GMT).