Investing.com - The Australian dollar moved lower against the U.S. dollar in Asian trade Friday, as the greenback got a boost from gains on Wall Street and better than expected jobless claim figures.
AUD/USD hit 0.9753 in early Asian trade, the pair’s highest since Thursday; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.9764, falling 0.19%.
The pair was likely to find support at 0.9670, last Friday’s low, and resistance at 1.0078, last Thursday’s high.
The U.S. Department of Labor released data for the past week, showing that the number of Americans filing for unemployment assistance fell more than expected, to a seasonally adjusted 391,000 from 428,000 the prior week.
Market expectation were for the weekly figure to drop to 420,000.
Wall Street retreated from early session gains to close mixed on Thursday; The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.30% to 11,154.00, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.43% to 2,480.76, while the S&P 500 added 0.81% to 1,160.40.
Australian stocks mirrored mild gains on European and U.S. markets, with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 adding 0.34% to 4,022.50 in early Friday trade.
Meanwhile, the Australian Dollar was down against both the euro and the Japanese yen, with EUR/AUD adding 0.07% to hit 1.3910, and AUD/JPY falling 0.38% to hit 74.86.
The Australian Industry Group's manufacturing index was due for release over the weekend.