Forexpros – bsp;Forexpros – The U.S. dollar soared against its major counterparts on Thursday as the European Central Bank slashes interest rates to record lows and fails to commit to bond purchases.
During mid session U.S. trade, the greenback was sharply higher against the euro, with EUR/USD plunging 0.63% to hit 1.3329.
The single currency was crushed by the 25 basis point rate slash and ECB President Mario Draghi’s failure to signal support for the ailing euro zone economies.
The greenback was also higher against the pound with GPB/USD falling 0.47% to 1.5637.
Earlier in the day, the Bank of England kept interest rates steady at 0.5% and revealed no changes to its asset repurchase programs.
Meanwhile the greenback was higher against the yen and Swiss franc with USD/JPY rising 0.35% to 77.70 and USD/CHF advancing 0.36% to 0.9268.
Data from Canada indicated that housing starts declined more than expected in November dropping to 181,000 units from 209,000 units the previous month.
The greenback was up against its Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand counterparts, with USD/CAD adding 1.11% to hit 1.0212, AUD/USD falling 1.14% to 1.0177 and NZD/USD giving back 0.84% to 0.7732.
The dollar index which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies soared 0.54%.
Earlier, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that unemployment filings fell to the lowest level since late February dropping to 381,000 from 404,000 the previous week.
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