(Bloomberg) -- The Australian and New Zealand dollars slid for a second day as government reports showed U.S. retail sales and producer prices unexpectedly fell, puncturing optimism that the worst of the global slump is ending.

The currencies also weakened against the yen as U.S. stocks declined for the first time in four days, reducing appetite for higher-yielding assets. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which sold $5 billion in shares, dropped 12 percent as Standard & Poor’s said the bank’s better-than-estimated earnings may not be sustainable.

“U.S. March retail sales were a hammer blow to those who had begun to turn optimistic after recent less-than-horrible economic news,” David Watt, senior currency strategy in Toronto at RBC Capital Markets, wrote yesterday in a note to clients. “Although Goldman had set tongues aflutter with their early earnings release, the aftertaste was rather unpleasant.”

Australia’s dollar weakened to 72.09 U.S. cents as of 7:52 a.m. in Sydney, from 72.39 cents yesterday. It declined 0.6 percent to 71.21 yen. New Zealand’s currency fell to 58.18 U.S. cents from 58.33 cents. It fell 0.4 percent to 57.48 yen.

Retail sales in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in March for the first time in three months, declining 1.1 percent, the Commerce Department said yesterday in Washington. The Labor Department said wholesale prices fell last month, indicating that deflation risks remain.

The figures served to temper optimism the world’s largest economy has passed through the worst of its recession, even as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said there were “tentative signs that the sharp decline” in the economy was easing. He cited “progress” in stabilizing financial markets, which he said was critical to a sustainable recovery, he said while speaking at Morehouse College in Atlanta yesterday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Garfield Reynolds in Sydney at greynolds1@bloomberg.net