Forexpros – The U.S. dollar was mixed against its major counterparts on Thursday, after France and Germany announced that they had reached a joint deal on a strategy for dealing with Greece’s debt crisis.

During European morning trade, the greenback was weaker against the euro, with EUR/USD climbing 0.25% to hit 1.4250.

Details of the deal between Germany and France were to be presented at a summit in Brussels of all 17 euro zone national leaders later Thursday.

But the single currency pared gains after preliminary data showed that German manufacturing output fell to a 21-month low in July, while manufacturing activity in the euro zone slumped to the lowest since August 2009.

The greenback was also lower against the pound, with GBP/USD rising 0.18% to hit 1.6181.

Official data showed earlier that retail sales in the U.K. rose more-than-expected in June.

Meanwhile, the greenback edged higher against the yen and the Swiss franc, with USD/JPY inching up 0.06% to hit 78.82 and USD/CHF rising 0.15% to hit 0.8211.

Elsewhere, the greenback slipped against its Canadian counterpart but eased up against its Australian and New Zealand cousins, with USD/CAD sliding 0.07% to hit 0.9465, AUD/USD shedding 0.32% to hit 1.0714 and NZD/USD dipping 0.02% to hit 0.8560.

Earlier in the day, a report showed that manufacturing activity in China slumped to a 28-month low in July, sparking concerns over a slowdown in demand for commodities.

The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.19%.

Also Thursday, the U.S. was to release a weekly government report on initial jobless claims, as well as a report on manufacturing activity.

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