Dollar Loses Ground Against Major Counterparts
(RTTNews) - The U.S. dollar shed some ground on Thursday although the downside was limited thanks to stronger than expected weekly jobless claims data, new home sales data and manufacturing activity report.
In U.S. economic news, data from the Labor Department showed initial jobless claims saw further downside in the week ended October 19th, dropping to 227,000 in the week, a decrease of 15,000 from the previous week's revised level of 242,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 242,000 from the 241,000 originally reported for the previous week.
According to a report released by the Commerce Department, new home sales surged by 4.1% to an annual rate of 738,000 in September after tumbling by 2.3% to a revised rate of 709,000 in August.
The dollar index dropped to 104.01, losing about 0.4%.
Against the Euro, the dollar weakened to 1.0828 from 1.0783, and against Pound Sterling, it shed more than 0.4% at 1.2973.
The dollar slipped against the Japanese currency to 151.83 yen a unit, from 152.76 yen on Wednesday. Against the Aussie, the dollar declined marginally to 0.6640.
The Swiss franc gained slightly against the dollar, trading at CHF 0.8659. The Loonie eased to 1.3857 a unit of the U.S. currency, from 1.3838.
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