Reserve Bank of Australia's Glenn Stevens on Tuesday evening told a gathering of business economists that he "happened to agree with" the argument for holding the cash rate target steady at 2 per cent when the board next meets on December 1.

"I'm more than content to lower it if that actually helps, but is that the best thing to do at any particular time?" Stevens said in response to a question on the cash rate. "We've got Christmas. We should just chill out, come back and see what the data says."

The local currency traded lower ahead of the governor's speech, which painted a broadly downbeat picture of the long-term prospects for the Australian economy, but quickly recovered and lifted through the night and into Wednesday around a one-month high.

In late local trading on Wednesday, it was fetching US72.68¢, compared with US71.98¢ at the same time on Tuesday.

The Aussie's strength was surprising given a further fall in the benchmark price of iron ore, which slumped 1.9 per cent to $US43.89 a tonne on Tuesday night, the lowest in daily data dating back to May 2009. The previous low of $US44.59 was set in July.

The local currency also proved resilient to Tuesday evening's shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey, which spooked world financial markets and lifted the price of oil.

Construction data

Nor did weaker than expected construction data for the third quarter manage to quell investor enthusiasm.

Some currency brokers ascribed the Aussie's strength to trader and hedge fund shorting of the US dollar index on any dips in the greenback.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday the value of construction activity shrunk by 3.6 per cent in the third quarter, as investment in housing and office buildings failed to pick up the slack left by the decline in resources related engineering works.

The slump was driven by a 7.3 per cent fall in the value of engineering works, to $24.9 billion, reflecting mainly the mining investment downturn. It came after an improvement in the June quarter, ascribed to the importation of a liquid natural gas module to Western Australia.

For the year, there was a decline of 11.7 per cent in engineering works.

The decline was worse than market forecasts, but the Australian dollar hardly missed a beat, dipping slightly before climbing throughout the afternoon.

Some of Wednesday's data feeds into the national accounts, which will be published next week. Some economists are predicting a strong quarter, led by a big contribution from exports.

Thursday brings more inputs to third-quarter gross domestic product in the form of the ABS's capital expenditure survey.

The release will not only include actual third-quarter business investment, but also the fourth estimate of capital expenditure to the end of the 2015-16 financial year.

"A pick-up in non‑mining capital expenditure has yet to materialise despite low interest rates and more recently a lower Australian dollar," said Commonwealth Bank of Australia senior economist Gareth Aird.

"Most forecasters of the economy, including the RBA, expect non‑mining investment to eventually rebound so Thursday's figures will be closely scrutinised for any evidence that the worm may be turning."