Investing.com - The U.S. dollar turned lower against other major currencies on Tuesday, as markets paused after the greenback's recent climb to nearly two-week highs following last week's upbeat U.S. employment data.
The greenback was boosted after the U.S. Department of Labor reported on Friday that the economy added 200,000 jobs in January, beating expectations for a 184,000 gain. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.1% this month, in line with expectations.
The report also showed that average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in January, as expected.
The strong wage growth data fueled inflation expectations, and underlined the case for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at a faster pace this year.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down 0.23% at 89.37 by 05:15 a.m. ET (09:15 GMT), off the nearly two-week peak of 89.58 reached overnight.
The euro and the pound were higher, with EUR/USD up 0.26% at 1.2400 and with GBP/USD adding 0.19% to 1.3984.
The yen was steady, with USD/JPY at 109.01, while USD/CHF rose 0.26% to 0.9339.
Elsewhere, the Australian dollar was weaker, with AUD/USD shedding 0.11% to 0.7867, while NZD/USD advanced 0.61% to 0.7307.
Earlier Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia left the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1.50%, in a widely expected move.
The decision came shortly after the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that retail sales fell 0.5% in December, compared to expectations for a downtick of only 0.2%.
A separate report showed that Australia's trade balance hit a A$1.36 billion deficit in December from a surplus of A$0.036 billion the previous month, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated deficit of A$0.63 billion.
Analysts had expected the trade balance to reach a surplus of A$0.25 billion in December.
Meanwhile, USD/CAD was almost unchanged at 1.2531.