Erasing most of its early Asian session's uptrend, the euro held steady against its major counterparts in early deals on Thursday.
European stock markets are in positive territory after the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday played down chances of imminent stimulus withdrawal.
Speaking at a conference sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, he said the central bank will likely maintain its highly accommodative monetary policy "for the foreseeable future" as unemployment is still too high and inflation remains low.
The European Central Bank's monthly bulletin showed that rates will remain at the current level or lower for an extended period of time.
In economic news, Germany's whole sale prices increased modestly in June after falling for two months in a row, latest data from the Federal Statistical Office showed today.
The wholesale price index increased 0.7 percent on an annual basis in June, reversing decreases of 0.1 percent and 0.4 percent recorded in May and April. Economists were looking for an increase of 1 percent.
On a monthly basis, wholesale prices declined 0.4 percent in June, as they did in the previous month. The index was forecast to drop 0.1 percent month-on-month.
Elsewhere, the Bank of Japan decided to keep its monetary easing program unchanged, while it upwardly revised its assessment of the economy citing signs of recovery. Meanwhile, the central bank lowered its inflation and growth projections from its April forecasts.
The nine-member policy board decided unanimously to keep the target of the monetary base expansion at an annual pace of JPY 60-70 trillion. The decision was in line with economists' forecast.
The massive monetary easing program was launched in April soon after Haruhiko Kuroda took charge as BoJ Governor. The program was aimed at reversing 15 years of deflation in the economy.
Core machine orders jumped a seasonally adjusted 10.5 percent on month in May to 799.2 billion yen, the Cabinet Office said today, rising for the third time in four months.
The headline figure blew away forecasts for an increase of 1.9 percent following the 8.8 percent plunge in April. On a yearly basis, core machine orders spiked 16.5 percent.
The euro hovered in the range of 1.3020 and 1.3060 against the US dollar in most of today's early European deals, moving off Asian session's gains above 1.32.
The common currency also pared its Asian session advance against the pound, trading between 0.8635 and 0.8655.
The single currency was trading in a range between 1.2415 and 1.2375 against the Swiss franc, briefly bouncing off Asian session's multi-day low of 1.2363.
The 17-nation bloc currency failed to sustain its early Asian session's bullish momentum against the yen, retreating from a 2-day high of 130.41 and was trading in lower ranges of 129.80 and 129.10.
Traders look ahead to data on the U.S. weekly jobless claims for the weekended July 06 and the import price index for June in the North American session for further directional clues.
