Investing.com - The Australian dollar backed off one week highs against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, but losses were held in check following the release of solid trade and retail sales data earlier in the session.
AUD/USD touched highs of 0.9364 before retracting those gains to trade at 0.9336, dipping 0.05%.
The pair was likely to find support at the 0.93 level and resistance at around 0.9375.
The Aussie strengthened earlier in the session after official data showed that the country’s trade deficit narrowed to A$1.36 billion in August, which was smaller than the forecast of A$1.51 billion and down from June's deficit of A$1.56 billion.
A separate report showed that domestic retail sales rose 0.4% in July, in line with expectations, following a 0.6% increase in June.
Demand for the greenback continued to be underpinned by expectations that the Federal Reserve is growing closer to raising interest rates as recent upbeat economic reports indicated that the U.S. recovery is deepening.
Investors were looking ahead to the latest U.S. employment report, due for release on Friday, for further indications on the strength of the recovery in the labor market, a key factor in deciding the future path of monetary policy.
Elsewhere Thursday, AUD/NZD was little changed at 1.1221, while AUD/JPY was steady at 97.99.