Investing.com - The Australian dollar edged moderately higher against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, while the New Zealand dollar edged lower as sentiment on the greenback mildly strengthened ahead of the Jackson Hole Summit due to begin on Thursday.
AUD/USD eased up 0.08% to 0.7944.
Traders were looking ahead to this week's annual meeting of top central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where the heads of the U.S. and European central banks will be making keynote speeches.
Their comments will be closely watched for fresh policy signals from the world’s two most powerful central banks.
Market participants also continued to focus on political tensions in Washington after senior White House advisor Steven Bannon was fired on Friday.
Ongoing uncertainty over the economic agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump and doubts that the Federal Reserve will deliver a third rate hike this year have fed into recent dollar weakness.
NZD/USD held steady at 0.7325.
Geopolitical tensions also continued to dominate investors' attention, after North Korea unveiled a propaganda video of its threat to fire missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam.
Pyongyang threatened the U.S. with “merciless revenge” for ignoring its warnings over annual military drills with South Korea.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.10% at 93.09by 02:15 a.m. ET (06:15 a.m. GMT), just off the previous session's one-week low of 92.92.