Forexpros – The U.S. dollar was mixed against its major counterparts in Asian trade Thursday, on the back of encouraging factory order data and the overnight gain for Wall Street issues
In mid-day Asian trade, the greenback was higher against the euro, with EUR/USD slipping 0.02% to hit 1.4369.
The U.S. Census Bureau on Wednesday reported that factory orders jumped 2.4% in July, far exceeding economist’s forecasts of a 1% increase. That followed a 0.4% decline in June.
A separate report from payroll processing firm ADP revealed that non-farm private employment in the U.S. rose less than expected to a seasonally adjusted 91,000 in August.
The August figure follows a 109,000 gain in July and fell short of market expectations of an increase to 103,000.
Shares on Wall Street rallied for the fourth straight day, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 0.46%, the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.13%, and the S&P 500 was lifted 0.49%.
The poor labor numbers came at the heels of the release of minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s August policy meeting, where some members favored the introduction of further action to boost the economy, including the purchasing of additional government debt.
Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said that the central bank should consider additional stimulus measures unless the U.S. economy shows significant improvement.
Evans added that the Federal Reserve’s bond buying measures “need to stay in place until unemployment drops below 7% or inflation gets past 3%.â€
Meanwhile, the greenback was up against the British pound, with GBP/USD down by 0.06% to 1.6236.
The dollar was higher against both the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc with USD/JPY rising 0.38% to hit 76.96, and USD/CHF up by 0.18% to hit 0.8073.
The greenback was mixed against its Canadian, Australian and New Zealand counterparts with USD/CAD down 0.04% to hit 0.9771, AUD/USD lower by 0.05% to hit 1.0705, and NZD/USD falling 0.41% to hit 0.8506.
The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was up 0.04% at 74.24.
Weekly initial jobless claims data from the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as the Institute of Supply Management’s Manufacturing Index were due out later Thursday.
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