Aussie slightly weaker at US$0.74

The Australian dollar, widely viewed as a proxy for risk appetite, traded 0.1 percent weaker at US$0.74745, but still near the middle of the broad range in place over the past three weeks.

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe speaks about the labour market and monetary policy later Thursday, a day after the central bank took its first step towards stimulus tapering by announcing that a third round of its quantitative easing program would be smaller in scale than the previous two.