By Lisa Twaronite, MarketWatch
TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- The dollar sank against its Australian counterpart in Asian trading Thursday, after data showed Australia's jobless rate eased in December, with the economy adding more than three times as many jobs as economists had forecast.
The Aussie bought 93.05 U.S. cents, up 0.8%, after earlier rising as high as 93.29 cents.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said the nation's unemployment rate, on a seasonally-adjusted basis, fell 0.1% to 5.5% from a revised 5.6% in November. See full story on Australian jobless data.
The better-than-expected data increased the chances that the Reserve Bank of Australia will decided on an unprecedented fourth straight interest-rate hike at its next meeting in February, from its current cash rate of 3.75%.
"We continue to forecast an RBA cash rate of 5.50% by December and the market pricing for this date has moved from 4.98% before the number to about 5.06% after the number," Barclays Capital analyst David Forrester said in emailed comments.
Against other rivals, the U.S. unit was mostly higher.
The dollar index (DXY 76.87, +0.03, +0.04%) rose to 76.911, up from 76.858 in North American trade late Wednesday. The index gauges the performance of the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies.
The dollar rose versus the Japanese currency to change hands at 91.91 yen, up from 91.40 yen Wednesday.
The euro recently bought $1.4515, up from $1.4510, and the British pound changed hands at $1.6276, down from $1.6284.
The dollar slipped Wednesday against most major rivals after the Federal Reserve's report on regional economic conditions said conditions were improving modestly, and the U.S. Treasury said the government ran a budget deficit of $91.8 billion in December. See Wednesday's Currencies report.
