The Australian dollar is slightly higher as investors shrugged off weak economic data and sat on the sidelines waiting for bigger events.
At 5pm AEST, the local unit was at 96.56 US cents, up from 96.41 cents on Friday, and at its high for the local session.
The low for the session since 7am AEST was 95.91 US cents.
Of the economic news today the most significant was the official retail spending figures for April, which rose only 0.2 per cent, and an ANZ report that showed job ads fell in May for the third consecutive month.
A HSBC survey confirmed that China's manufacturing activity shrank in May for the first time in seven months.
CMC Markets foreign exchange dealer Tim Waterer said the Australian dollar traded in a tight range, not reacting to the economic figures.
"Commodity price pressures, a stronger US dollar and an upcoming Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) interest rate announcement were enough to keep the Australian dollar relatively range-bound to start the week," he said.
"While the RBA is unlikely to cut on Tuesday, in part due to the recent depreciation of the Australian dollar, traders will be closely combing through the statement (that accompanies the rates decision) looking for clues as to how much of an easing bias remains at play."
Other key data this week includes Australian March quarter economic growth on Wednesday and the US May non-farm payrolls report on Friday, the key indicator of American employment growth.
At 5pm AEST, the Australian dollar was at 96.82 Japanese yen, up from Friday's close of 97.19 yen, and at 74.05 euro cents, up from 73.97 euro cents.
Meanwhile, Australian bond futures prices pushed lower.
UBS interest rate strategist Andrew Lilley said that normally with weak data, investors, being more cautious, would buy safe-haven assets like bonds.
"That data was a little bit worse than expected and I was a little surprised on the back of that, we didn't see any significant change in yields," he said.
"Part of this is a trend in the global bond market for yields to go higher (prices go lower) and we're continuing to see some selling off."
At 4.30pm, the June 10-year bond futures contract was trading at 96.575 (implying a yield of 3.425 per cent), down from 96.635 (3.365 per cent) on Friday.
The June three-year bond futures contract was at 97.360 (2.640 per cent), down from 97.400 (2.600 per cent).
