Investing.com - The New Zealand dollar climbed to a one-and-a-half month high against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, as the greenback weakened broadly due to growing caution ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy decision.
NZD/USD hit 0.6821 during late Asian trade, the pair's highest since October 28; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.6816, advancing 0.90%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.6701, the low of December 11 and resistance at 0.6873, the high of October 23.
Market participants awaited the Fed's highly-anticipated policy decision due on Wednesday. Most investors expect the Fed to raise interest rates for the first time since June 2006.
The kiwi was higher against the Australian dollar, with AUD/NZD declining 0.68% to 1.0646.
Earlier Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia said, in the minutes of its December policy meeting, that the domestic economy is strengthening and noted that overal business conditions and the employment market looked healthy.
However, in its mid-year economic and fiscal outlook, Australia's Treasury said growth forecasts were downgraded to 2.5% in 2015/16 from a previous estimate of 2.75% in May and to 2.75% in 2016/17 from 3.25%.
The report also said that the country's debt and budget deficit will be higher than initially expected.
Separately, data showed that Australia's house price index rose by 2.0% in the third quarter, in line with expectations, after an increase of 2.7% in the three months to June.