Australian dollar on the move after mining tax deal By Deborah Levine and William L. Watts, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. dollar was slightly lower versus the euro and other most currencies on Friday after the Labor Department said the economy shed 125,000 jobs in June, with the private sector adding 83,000 positions. The dollar index (DXY 84.23, -0.48, -0.57%) , a measure of the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell to 84.231 from 84.284 before the report and 84.680 in late North American trading on Thursday. The euro (CUR_EURUSD 1.2587, +0.0072, +0.5753%) , which jumped sharply versus all its major rivals on Thursday, rose to $1.2594, briefly topping $1.26 and up from $1.2486 late Thursday. Against the yen, the dollar (CUR_USDYEN 87.7000, -0.0200, -0.0228%) bought ¥87.56, compared to ¥87.42. The British pound (CUR_GBPUSD 1.5184, +0.0019, +0.1253%) rose 0.3% to buy $1.5202. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch predicted private employment would rise 115,000, while the federal government cut about 230,000 temporary census takers. Read more on jobs data. "A weak number will work against the U.S. dollar," wrote economists at BNP Paribas, before the report. The dollar took a drubbing Thursday, undercut in part by a rise in weekly U.S. initial jobless claims, a fall in home sales and a weak reading on a gauge of manufacturing activity. See Thursday's currencies column. That reaction stood in contrast to the pattern that's held to varying degrees to the recent pattern, in which the dollar has tended to benefit from safe-haven flows amid negative economic news. "The greenback had not been affected by bad macro data over the past few weeks, but this is likely to have been due to the fact that investors initially considered these as one-offs," wrote Ulrich Leuchtmann, currency analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. "The concentration of weak data might have caused investors to rethink." But some strategists questioned the euro's ability to follow through on gains despite rising concerns about the strength of the U.S. economic recovery. "Let's not forget that the euro-zone growth environment is not more appealing than that of the U.S.," wrote strategists at Brown Brothers Harriman. "In fact, it is still the opposite." They contend a diverging economic climate between Germany and peripheral euro zone countries will continue to undercut the euro, with numerous austerity measures likely to make things worse. "The U.S. economy is in a better place than that of the euro zone at this point of the cycle," they wrote. The euro posted little reaction to data showing euro-zone unemployment was unchanged in May at 10%, matching a 12-year peak for the third consecutive month. Read about euro-zone unemployment. The Australian dollar initially rose Friday after the Australian government announced a deal with the mining industry on a controversial resource-tax plan. The country's new prime minister, Julia Gillard, announced the deal in Canberra before the stock-market open, saying a "basic structure" for taxing natural-resource profits was now in place. Read about Australian resource tax. The Aussie (CUR_AUDUSD 0.8461, -0.0001, -0.0118%) later gave up gains, however, to buy 84.55 U.S. cents, down 0.1%, after rising as high as 85.09 U.S. cents earlier.

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