Investing.com - The Australian dollar fell to session lows against the U.S. dollar on Monday as surprisingly weak trade data from China raised fresh concerns over the strength of the world’s second-largest economy.
AUD/USD was down 0.49% to 0.9025, from Friday’s close of 0.9068.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.8980 and resistance at 0.9062, the session high.
Sentiment on the Aussie was hit after data released over the weekend showed that Chinese exports dropped 18.1% on a year-over-year basis in February, confounding expectations for a 6.8% increase, following a rise of 10.6% in January.
A separate report showed that the annual rate of inflation in China slowed to 2.0% in February, from 2.5% in January.
China is Australia’s largest export market, which makes the Australian dollar sensitive to fluctuations in Chinese economic reports.
The greenback remain supported after official data on Friday showed that the U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs in February, well above expectations for 149,000 new jobs.
The jobs report eased concerns over soft U.S. employment and other economic data seen in the past few months. The strong figure indicated that the Federal Reserve is likely to continue to scale back its stimulus program, which has weighed on the value of the dollar.
Elsewhere, the dollar was slightly lower against the yen, with USD/JPY dipping 0.07% to 103.19.
The pair fell to session lows of 102.94 earlier after data showed that Japan posted a record current account deficit of ¥1.589 trillion in January and fourth quarter growth was revised down.
Japan's economy grew 0.2% in the final three months of 2013, below the preliminary estimate for growth of 0.3%. On a year-over-year basis, the economy expanded by 0.7%, compared to an initial estimate of 1.0%.
The dollar was little changed against the euro, with EUR/USD trading at 1.3873, not far from Friday’s two-and-a-half year peak of 1.3915.
Demand for the single currency continued to be underpinned as expectations for further easing by the European Central Bank dimmed, after the bank refrained from tightening monetary policy last week.
The ECB left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.5% on Thursday, saying economic conditions did not support tightening, despite the low inflation outlook for the euro area.