Investing.com - The Australian dollar was higher against its U.S. counterpart on Wednesday, pulling away from a seven-month trough after positive Australian data but gains were expected to remain limited as Tuesday's U.S. manufacturing data continued to boost the greenback.
AUD/USD hit 0.8879 during late Asian trade, the session high; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.8879, gaining 0.44%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.8829, Tuesday's low and a seven-month low and resistance at 0.8952, the high of September 22.
In a report, the Conference Board said its leading index for Australia rose 0.5% in July, after a 0.2% gain in June, whose figure was revised down from a previously estimated increase of 0.4%.
Separately, the Reserve Bank of Australia said that it is currently discussing possible measures with other regulators to strengthen lending practices.
In its semi-annual Financial Stability Review, the RBA said that "the composition of housing and mortgage markets is becoming unbalanced, with new lending to investors being out of proportion to rental housing's share of the housing stock."
Meanwhile, the greenback remained supported after data on Tuesday showed that the U.S. manufacturing sector expanded in September, matching the rate of growth seen in the previous month, which was the strongest in over four years.
The Aussie was fractionally higher against the New Zealand dollar, with AUD/NZD inching up 0.09% to 1.0990.
Also Wednesday, official data showed that New Zealand's trade deficit narrowed to NZ$472 million last month from NZ$692 million in July. Analysts had expected the trade deficit to widen to NZ$1,275 million in August.
The report showed that exports rose by NZ$3.52 billion last month, beating expectations for an increase of NZ$3.15 billion.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release a report on new home sales.