WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. dollar exhibited strength against most of its major rivals on Thursday, reacting to a slew of economic data from across the globe, and news about a surge in coronavirus infections worldwide.
Data from the Labor Department showed jobless claims dropped to 1.508 million in the week ended June 13th, a decrease of 58,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised level of 1.566 million. Economists had expected jobless claims to tumble to 1.300 million from the 1.542 million originally reported for the previous week.
The Conference Board said its leading economic index jumped by 2.8% in May after plunging by 6.1% in April and 7.5 percent in March. Economists had expected the index to climb by 1.7%.
Philadelphia-area manufacturing activity unexpected expanded in the month of June, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The Philly Fed said its diffusion index for current general activity skyrocketed to a positive 27.5 in June from a negative 43.1 in May, with a positive reading indicating an expansion in regional manufacturing activity.
Economists had expected the index to show a much more modest increase to a negative 23.0, which would have still indicated a contraction.
Meanwhile, in coronavirus news, Beijing has reportedly closed schools and canceled flights to contain the latest coronavirus outbreak, which has purportedly led to more than 100 new confirmed cases.
A CNN analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University found ten U.S. states are seeing their highest seven-day average of new coronavirus cases per day since the pandemic started.
The dollar index rose to 97.58 around mid afternoon, and despite paring some gains subsequently, was still firmly up in positive territory at 97.47, up 0.32% from previous close.
Against the Euro, the dollar firmed up to $1.1207, gaining about 0.32%
The Pound Sterling, which exhibited weakness against most major currencies, bounced back after the Bank of England left its interest rate unchanged and expanded its quantitative easing to help limit the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the economy.
The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee raised the size of the asset purchase programme by GBP 100 billion to GBP 745 billion and said they are ready to take further action as required to support the economy and ensure a sustained return of inflation to the 2% target.
Against the dollar, the sterling was hovering around $1.2565 early on in the session, but weakened to $1.2402 by mid morning. It later recovered to $1.2428, but was still down more than 1% from Wednesday's close.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar was flat at 106.97, after moving between 106.61 and 107.14.
The Aussie was weaker by nearly 0.5% with the AUD-USD pair at 0.6851 after data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that the unemployment rate in Australia came in at a seasonally adjusted 7.1% in May - missing forecasts for 7% and up from the upwardly revised 6.4% in April (originally 6.2%).
Against Swiss franc, the dollar was stronger at CHF0.9512, rising from CHF0.9487 overnight. Switzerland's central bank kept its expansionary monetary policy stance as it expects the economy to contract the most in over five decades and inflation to remain more negative than forecast earlier, this year due to the impact of the coronavirus, or Covid-19, and the lockdown restrictions imposed to slow the pandemic.
The Swiss National Bank left the key interest rate unchanged at -0.75%, in line with economists' expectations, and said it remains willing to intervene more strongly in the foreign exchange market due to the high valuation for the Swiss franc.
The Canadian Loonie was weak as well against the dollar with a unit of greenback fetching C$1.3601, compared with C$1.3565 last evening. In Canadian economic news, wholesale sales dropped by 21.6% in April, after having decreased by 2.2% in March 2020.
Private businesses in Canada hired 208,400 workers in the month of May 2020, after shedding 226,700 jobs a month earlier.
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