Investing.com – The Australian dollar fluctuated between small gains and losses during the Asian trading on Tuesday ahead of data release for December Housing Finance and the January NAB Business Confidence.
At 1130 Sydney time (0030 GMT) Australian Bureau of Statistics will release MoM home loans and house price index for December. In November they rose 1.1% and 1.9% respectively and markets are expecting them to rise by 0.9% and 3% respectively in December.
At the same time National Australia Bank will release business confidence index for January.
Japanese markets are closed for the public holiday of National Foundation Day.
AUD/USD fell 0.03% at 0.8947, NZD/USD rose 0.02% at 0.8267 while USD/JPY fell 0.05% at 102.20.
On Monday, the greenback traded largely flat against major currencies in a market void of major economic indicators as the investors remained on the sidelines ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's first congressional testimony as the country's top monetary authority on Tuesday. It many hope will carry clues on the direction of U.S. monetary policy.
Meanwhile, the Euro remained under pressure after Germany's constitutional Court ruled at the end of last week that the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program may exceed its mandate, and referred it to European Court of Justice.
Markets shrugged off data released earlier revealing that French industrial production fell 0.3% in December, compared to expectations for a 0.1% uptick. Industrial production in November was revised down to a 1.2% increase from a previously estimated 1.3% rise.
The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was flat at 80.71.