Investing.com -- The U.S. dollar weakened 0.70% against its Australian counterpart on Wednesday, as Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen concluded her second day of testimony on Capitol Hill.
At one point on Wednesday, AUD/USD reached a one-month high of 0.7900 -- an increase of more than 0.75%. The pair closed on Wednesday in U.S. markets up 0.054 points to 0.7886.
AUD/USD gained support at 0.7817, its level from early-December and resistance at 0.7907.
Data from China's HSBC manufacturing index edged up to 50.1 for the month of February. The revival in production boosted the Australian dollar, as the Australian economy is heavily dependent on Chinese exports.
In addition, dovish comments from Ms. Yellen during her semi-annual Humphrey-Hawkins testimony before Congress has caused the dollar to weaken slightly over the last two days.
Unlike Yellen's appearance in front of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, members of the House Financial Services Committee spent little time on Wednesday discussing monetary policy. When addressing a potential interest-rate hike, Yellen reiterated that the Fed could wait several additional meetings before raising rates.
Elsewhere, USD/JPY was down 0.01% to 118.84, while NZD/USD was up 0.02% to 0.755.