By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The U.S. dollar slipped versus other major currencies early Thursday as traders braced for a parade of data that could set a weak tone.
The ICE dollar index DXY +0.19% , which tracks the unit against six major rivals, fell to 81.537, down from 81.710 late Wednesday in North America, accelerating its losses from the previous day’s relatively mild drop.
The WSJ Dollar Index XX:BUXX +0.14% , which uses a slightly wider comparison basket than the ICE index, slid to 73.80 from a Wednesday close at 73.98.
The moves came ahead of a wide slate of U.S. economic data, including weekly jobless claims, consumer inflation and industrial production for July, as well as the Empire State and Philly Fed reports gauging conditions in two key northeastern regions.
“Of these releases, we believe that the Empire and Philly Fed surveys will be the most important because they are the most up-to-date measures of how the U.S. economy is doing,” BK Asset Management managing director Kathy Lien said in a note Wednesday.
“If manufacturing activity slows like some economists expect, U.S. yields could retreat further, dragging down the dollar,” she said.
Economists surveyed by MarketWatch see the Philly Fed index falling to 15.0 from the previous month’s 19.8 reading. The Empire State index is projected to hold steady at July’s 9.5 reading, which had marked a sharp pickup for the New York region after the index printed at 7.8 in June.
The Empire State index is due from the New York Federal Reserve at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, while the Philly Fed is slated for release at 10 a.m. Eastern.
The dollar’s decline sent the euro EURUSD -0.16% up to $1.3293 from Wednesday’s $1.3257, and the British pound GBPUSD +0.27% rose to $1.5587 from $1.5509.
The pound’s gain extended a strong showing during the previous day in reaction to a forecast-topping read on British unemployment.
“U.K. employment came in better than expected, suggesting that Bank of England Gov. [Mark] Carney’s 7.0% unemployment threshold for potential tightening action [...] could be reached sooner than anticipated,” wrote CMC Markets senior market analyst Colin Cieszynski.
The dollar erased early weakness versus the Japanese yen USDJPY +0.30% , however, rising to ÂĄ98.09 versus ÂĄ98.02 late Wednesday, while the Australian dollar AUDUSD -0.17% rose to 91.57 U.S. cents from 91.40 cents.
Michael Kitchen is Asia editor for MarketWatch and is based in Los Angeles. You can follow him on Twitter at @KitchenNews.
