The Australian dollar is little changed against its US counterpart which has again risen helped by buoyant short-term US Treasury yields.

At 0635 AEDT on Thursday, the Australian dollar was worth 78.50 US cents, from 78.52 US cents on Wednesday.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.14 per cent at 89.838, after hitting a one-week high of 89.998 earlier in the session, Reuters reported.

“Short-term Treasury (yields) have moved up fairly significantly overnight, reaching levels we had seen last during the Lehman crisis,” Reuters quoted currency strategist Sireen Harajli as saying.

“This higher push in yield has been beneficial for the dollar.”

But the tide turned after the release of the Federal Open Market Committee minutes from the Federal Reserve, said Westpac’s Imre Speizer in a Thursday morning note.

“The USD index was mostly higher on the day, but flipped from a 0.2 per cent gain to a 0.1 per cent loss after the FOMC minute just released,” he said.

“The AUD underperformed, falling from 0.7880 to 0.7830, but bounced to 0.7879 post-FOMC minutes.”

No major event risks for the local currency are on the horizon on Thursday.

Speizer said he thought the Australian dollar “should remain under downward pressure today, towards 0.7800, given the recently firmer US dollar”.

The Aussie dollar is down against the yen and the the euro.

AAP

Access exclusive analysis, locked news and reports with Inside Retail Weekly. Subscribe today and get our premium print publication delivered to your door every week.