The Australian and New Zealand dollars held near two-year peaks on Friday, on track for their third straight weekly gain as the greenback stayed saddled with a snail-paced Federal Reserve. The Australian dollar stood at $0.7962, having reached $0.8066 on Thursday - its highest since May 2015.
It is up 0.6 percent for the week so far and 3.6 percent for all of July, its best monthly gain since January. The New Zealand dollar was down 0.2 percent at $0.7475 compared with Thursday's high of $0.7557, a level not seen since May 2015. It is up 0.3 percent in the week, winning for a third straight month.
The gains largely came as the US dollar slid to 13-week lows against a basket of currencies. Dollar bulls have not had much to cheer about recently, hobbled by investigations into US President Donald Trump's ties to Russia and the reduced likelihood of tax reform and infrastructure spending being enacted soon.
A policy statement from the Federal Reserve this week was also perceived by investors as being slightly on the dovish side. The market's focus has now veered to second-quarter economic growth data due later in the session. "The greenback's demise has been the real driver for AUD this week," Matt Simpson, senior analyst at ThinkMarkets, said in a note.
New Zealand government bonds were broadly lower, sending yields about 2 basis points higher across the long end of the curve. Australian government bond futures were flat, with the three-year bond contract at 98.030 and the 10-year contract at 97.3100.