Investing.com - The Australian dollar was steady against its U.S. counterpart on Monday, after the release of positive retail sales data from Australia, while the greenback slightly recovered from losses posted after Friday's disappointing U.S. employment data.
AUD/USD hit 0.9330 during late Asian trade, the pair's highest since August 1; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.9315, inching up 0.01%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.9258, the low of June 5 and resistance at 0.9388, the high of July 30.
Official data showed that Australian retail sales rose 0.6% in June, exceeding expectations for a 0.4% gain. Retail sales for May were revised to a 0.3% fall from a previously estimated 0.5% decline.
A separate report showed that job advertisements in Australia rose 0.3% in July, after a 4.4% increase in May, whose figure was revised up from a previously estimated 4.3% gain.
The greenback came under pressure on Friday after official data showed that the U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in July, below forecasts for jobs growth of 233,000. The previous month’s figure was revised up to a gain of 298,000 from a previously reported increase of 288,000.
Although it was the sixth successive month that the U.S. economy added more than 200,000 jobs, the unemployment rate unexpectedly ticked up to 6.2% from 6.1% in June. In addition, wage growth was flat, pointing to underlying slack in the economy.
The data eased speculation over the timing of a possible rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
The Aussie was fractionally higher against the euro, with EUR/AUD edging down 0.07% to 1.4407.