Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars declined against their U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, as expectations for a 2016 U.S. rate hike continued to support demand for the greenback.
AUD/USD retreated 0.71% to a three-week low of 0.7554.
Demand for the U.S. dollar remained supported as Friday’s disappointing U.S. jobs data was not expected to prevent the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates later this year.
Earlier Tuesday, the National Australia Bank said its business confidence index remained unchanged at 6 in September.
NZD/USD tumbled 0.97% to trade at 0.7065, the lowest since July 28.
The commodity currencies were also affected by a decline in oil prices on Tuesday, although crude remained supported by growing expectations of an output cut by OPEC producers.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.17% at 97.07, close to Friday’s more than two-month peak of 97.22.