Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollars moved higher on Thursday, as a surge in oil prices boosted demand for the commodity currencies, as well as upbeat manufacturing activity data in China.
AUD/USD gained 0.41% to 0.7411.
Oil prices rallied over 9% on Wednesday after OPEC members agreed to reduce production by 1.2 million barrils per day, marking its first production cut since 2008.
Separately, official data showed on Thursday that China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index rose to 51.7 in November from 51.2 the previous month.
China is Australia’s biggest export partner and New Zealand’s second biggest export partner.
NZD/USD edged up 0.14% to trade at 0.7094.
Meanwhile, the greenback still remained supported by expectations that increased fiscal spending and tax cuts under the Trump administration will spur economic growth and inflation.
Expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its December policy meeting also continued to underpin the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down 0.27% at 101.36, still close to recent 14-year highs of 102.12.