The U.S. dollar remained lower versus the Japanese yen early Thursday after a pair of reports showed continuing stress in the U.S. employment market while retail sales improved for the first time in seven months. The greenback slipped to 90.17 yen in recent trade, down from 90.41 yen in late North American trade Wednesday. The dollar index , which measures the U.S. unit against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, traded at 86.046 in recent action, up from 85.799 Wednesday. A government report said retail sales in January unexpectedly rose. The Labor Department said jobless claims declined by 8,000 to 623,000 in the week ended Feb. 7. Continuing claims, an indication of the difficulty of finding a new job, reached a record 4.81 million. A slump in overseas equity markets and U.S. stock futures pointing lower maintained a stream of safe-haven buying for the yen.
