Investing.com - The New Zealand dollar slipped against its U.S. counterpart on Monday, but remained close to a one-month high hit on Friday as demand for the greenback mildly weakened amid expectations that the Federal Reserve could hold interest rates for a longer period.
NZD/USD hit 0.7865 during late Asian trade, the pair's highest since December 11; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.7832, edging down 0.09%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.7788, Friday's low and resistance at 0.7871, the high of December 11.
The Labor Department reported on Friday that the economy added 252,000 jobs in December, more than the 240,000 forecast by economists. The unemployment rate ticked down to a six-and-a-half year low 5.6%.
But average earnings fell by 0.2% last month and were up by only 1.7% from a year earlier.
Weakness in earnings prompted investors to take profits in the dollar, as markets pushed back expectations for the first hike in U.S. interest rates to late-2015.
The kiwi was lower against the Australian dollar, with AUD/NZD rising 0.34% to 1.0501.
Also Monday, data earlier showed that Australian job advertisements rose 1.8% in December, after a 0.7% gain the previous month.
A separate report showed that home loans in Australia slipped 0.7% in November, disappointing expectations for an increase of 2.0%. October's figure was revised to a 0.2% rise from a previously estimated 0.3% gain.