Investing.com - The Australian and New Zealand dollar held steady against their U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, after the release of upbeat Australian data and as sentiment on the U.S. dollar became more vulnerable in the face of recovering equity markets.
AUD/USD was almost unchanged at 0.7863, the highest since February 7.
Earlier Tuesday, the National Australia Bank said its business confidence index rose to 12 in January from 11 the previous month, compared to expectations for a downtick to 10.
NZD/USD was steady at 0.7268.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar weakened as global equity markets began to recover on Monday from last week's steep losses.
U.S. markets were especially boosted by news on Monday of a $200 billion infrastructure plan by the Trump administration.
The plan is part of the two-year budget agreement passed by the U.S. Congress last Friday, ending a brief government shutdown.
The agreement is set to boost federal spending by almost $300 billion and suspend the debt ceiling for a year.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down 0.22% at 89.82 by 02:05 a.m. ET (06:05 GMT), the lowest since February 7.