Investing.com - The Australian dollar was almost unchanged against its U.S. counterpart on Monday, while the New Zealand dollar moved lower as Friday’s downbeat U.S. employment data failed to push the greenback significantly lower.
AUD/USD was steady at 0.7589.
The greenback initially weakened after the U.S. Labor Department said on Friday that the economy added 156,000 jobs in September, compared to expectations for 175,000.
The report also showed that the unemployment rate ticked up to 5.0% last month from 4.9% in August.
However, the disappointing data was not expected to prevent the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates later this year.
NZD/USD slid 0.33% to trade at 0.7142, not far from Friday’s two-month low of 0.7106.
Trading volumes were expected to remain thin on Monday, with U.S. markets closed for Columbus Day.
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 96.68, off Friday’s more than two-month peak of 97.22.