Investing.com - The New Zealand dollar climbed to one-month highs against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, even as the Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut interest rates by 0.25%, while the Australian dollar held steady near a more than three-month peak.
NZD/USD climbed 0.54% to 0.7252, the highest since July 13.
At the conclusion of its policy meeting, the RBNZ lowered its benchmark interest rate to 2.00% from 2.25%, in a widely expected move.
Commenting on the decision, RBNZ Govenor Graeme Wheeler said "the high exchange rate is adding further pressure to the export and import competing sectors."
"This makes it difficult for the bank to meet its inflation objective," he added.
AUD/USD was little changed at 0.7707, near Wednesday’s more than three-month high of 0.7756.
Meanwhile, investors were eyeing the U.S. jobless claims report due later in the day, as well as Friday’s U.S. retail sales data for further indications on the strength of the economy after weak data published earlier in the week dampened expectations for a 2016 rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
Sentiment on the greenback remained vulnerable after data on Tuesday showed that U.S. nonfarm productivity dropped by 0.5% in the second quarter, disappointing expectations for a 0.4% rise.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.09% at 95.69, off Wednesday’s one-week low of 95.38.