The Australian and New Zealand dollars held hefty gains on a battered euro and marked time against their US counterpart on Monday, as geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and a week packed with events kept investors cautious. The euro drifted to A$1.4052, close to a 10-month trough of A$1.4043 touched Friday. It fell 2.4 percent in August and charts are negative with the 5, 10 and 20-day moving average edging lower.
The deterioration of the situation in Ukraine only reinforced expectations of another round of policy easing by the European Central Bank, which holds its policy meeting this week.
A break of A$1.4040 could open a test of A$1.3714, the 50 percent retracement of the 2012-2014 rise.
The Australian dollar again proved resilient to broad US dollar strength and to signs of softness in the Chinese economy to be at $0.9332, not far from a peak of $0.9374 touched last week.
The Australian dollar is sensitive to news out of China, the country's key export market.
The kiwi fell 1.7 percent in August to touch a six-month low of $0.8311.
The fortnightly dairy auction by Fonterra will be scrutinised for any signs of prices stabilising, after they fell more than 40 percent from their peak in February.
The kiwi took some comfort from an unexpected 0.3 percent lift in the terms of trade in the second quarter, where the fall in import prices outstripped export prices.