SYDNEY, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Australian dollar is slightly weaker overnight despite finding late support from a weaker greenback.
At the Asian open Thursday, the local unit was trading at 76.56 US cents, down from 76.72 cents on Wednesday.
The local unit was already on a downward trend, falling over one percent in the last 24 hours on general U.S. dollar strength, however a less hawkish tone in the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy meeting minutes showed no clear consensus of the next rate rise.
"The Australian dollar has also under-performed on the major cross rates, with commodity prices putting in a mixed performance overnight and U.S. and European equity markets doing something similar," Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief currency strategist Richard Grace said.
The Australian dollar is expected to remain under pressure amid expectations of a weaker than concerns of labour force report, though the downside will be limited, Grace said.
At 0912 local time (AEST), the Australian dollar was little changed at 76.57 U.S. cents.
