Investing.com - The Australian dollar held steady against its U.S. counterpart on Monday, as the successful results of euro zone bank stress tests, released over the weekend, lent support to market sentiment.
AUD/USD hit 0.8824 during late Asian trade, the pair's highest since Friday; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.8797, inching up 0.05%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.8715, Friday's low and resistance at 0.8865, the high of October 15.
Market sentiment improved after the European Central Bank announced the results of yearlong tests to assess the finances on 150 banks on Sunday. Overall, 25 banks were found to have a capital shortfall, but most have already taken steps to resolve this, the ECB said.
In total, 13 banks still need to come up with a total of €9.5 billion in extra capital, which was at the lower end of market expectations.
Meanwhile, sentiment on the greenback remained vulnerable as fears that a slowdown in global economic growth could act as a drag on the U.S. economic recovery have prompted investors to push back expectations for an increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve to the second half of 2015.
The Aussie was lower against the euro, with EUR/AUD adding 0.17% to 1.4426.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to publish an industry report on pending home sales.