By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — The U.S. dollar slipped against the euro Wednesday ahead of the release of a generous helping of economic data for investors to digest before the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
The ICE dollar index DXY -0.04% , a measure of the greenback against six rivals, moved down to 80.550 from late Tuesday’s level at around 80.618. The euro EURUSD +0.03% , which has a heavy weighting in the index, bought $1.3594, more than $1.3571 in North American trade Tuesday.
The WSJ Dollar Index XX:BUXX +0.06% was at 73.40 versus 73.41.
Investors have been keeping watch on economic data as the Federal Reserve monitors the pace of recovery to gauge when it will begin to reduce monetary stimulus, which has been aimed at encouraging growth. Minutes from the Fed’s monetary-policy meeting in October, released last week, suggested the central bank may pull back on asset purchases at one of its upcoming meetings.
Ahead of Thursday’s holiday, data set to arrive include government figures on weekly jobless claims. Claims are expected rise slightly to 330,000 in the week of Nov. 17-23, up from 323,000. Claims over the past month, however, have ebbed lower and are approaching their lowest level since the recession ended.
The Fed has said improvement in the labor market is a key factor in its policy assessment. Some analysts have said the central bank’s program of purchasing of $85 billion a month in debt hurts the greenback’s value.
The prospect that the Fed may slow asset purchases in December or in January has helped lift the ICE dollar index by roughly 0.5% in November, and a win for the month would be its first since August.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department is due to release its report on orders for durable goods on Wednesday, and economists polled by MarketWatch expect a decline 2.2% in October after a 3.8% increase in September.
“Despite the [U.S.] government shutdown, there is a decent chance that core durable goods orders rose by 1% month-over-month in October,” wrote Capital Economics senior U.S. economist Paul Dales on Tuesday, noting that other data have shown that the impact on private activity from the shutdown of federal operations last month was limited.
“However, this is likely to have been more than offset by a fall in aircraft orders, resulting in something like a 2.5% month-over-month drop in total orders,” Dales wrote.
November readings of the Chicago PMI and consumer sentiment are also due Wednesday, as is the Conference Board’s report on leading economic indicators.
In other market action, the British pound GBPUSD +0.02% rose to $1.622 from $1.6212 Tuesday before a second estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product was due to be released. The Office for National Statistics last month had a preliminary estimate of 0.8% growth compared with the second quarter, the fastest rate of growth in more than three years.
The dollar USDJPY +0.31% rose to ÂĄ101.55 from ÂĄ101.24, picking up strength during Asian trade Wednesday, while the Australian dollar AUDUSD +0.01% held steady at 91.26 U.S. cents.
Carla Mozee is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter @MWMozee.
