The Australian dollar touched its highest level in two weeks at 76.85 US cents on Tuesday after the mid-year Budget review sprang few surprises, recovering from an early mark-down with the New Zealand dollar. The Aussie sank as the kiwi dollar dropped around a half cent after the New Zealand current account unexpectedly blew-out to a record deficit, but the local currency quickly rebounded and rallied into the Budget review.
"It's more of a catch-up to some of the moves we saw in other currencies last night, including euro," said Allison Montgomery, senior currency strategist at Westpac.
A European Commission report on Monday said the euro was not yet substantially out of line with fundamentals, lending support to the single European currency as the US dollar saw a widespread softening ahead of year-end.
The AUD was $0.7670/75 compared with $0.7631/36 late here on Monday.
The Aussie had fallen with it neighbouring kiwi dollar to $0.7614 after data showed the New Zealand current account deficit was NZ$4.22 billion, compared with a forecast NZ$3.48 billion shortfall, or 5.8 percent of gross domestic product.