Investing.com - The New Zealand dollar slid lower against its U.S. counterpart on Wednesday, after the release of mixed New Zealand employment data, while the Austrlian dollar rose off a one-and-a-half month low as it recovered from the Reserve Bank of Australia’s latest policy move.
NZD/USD fell 0.29% to trade at 0.6893.
Statistics New Zealand reported on Wednesday that the unemployment rate rose to 5.7% in the first quarter from 5.3% in the three months to December, compared to expectations for an uptick to 5.5%.
The report also showed that the number of employed people rose by 1.2% in the last quarter, beating expectations for a 0.7% gain and following an increase of 0.9% in the third quarter of 2015.
AUD/USD rose 0.20% to 0.7498, off one-and-a-half month lows of 0.7468 hit overnight.
The Aussie recovered from losses posted after the RBA surprised markets on Tuesday by lowering its benchmark interest rate to a record-low 1.75% from 2.00%.
Meanwhile, the greenback also continued to recover from sharp losses posted after the Federal Reserve’s decided last week to leave interest rates unchanged and indicated that any future interest rate hikes would be data dependent.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.15% at 93.16, off the previous session’s 16-month trough of 91.89.