The dollar continued its assault on the euro and crept higher versus other major rivals on Thursday, bolstered by its sovereign haven status.
After a holiday reprieve European debt concerns were once again front and center, driving the beleaguered euro to its lowest since September 2010 versus the dollar.
An encouraging prelude to Friday’s government jobs report fueled appetite for the dollar.
Steady gains took the dollar to $1.2775 versus the euro, up about 3 cents from where it began the week.
The dollar rallied to $1.5470 versus the sterling, and jumped back aboveY77 yen to stay away from last year’s record low 75.55.
Despite rising oil prices that dollar was back above C$1.02 versus its petro-linked Canadian counterpart.
Looking closer at today’s economic news, employment in the U.S. private sector increased by much more than anticipated in the month of December, according to a report released by payroll processor Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) on Thursday.
ADP said that private sector employment jumped by 325,000 jobs in December following a downwardly revised increase of 204,000 jobs in November.
New U.S. unemployment claims fell to a lower than expected level in the final week of December, according to figures released Thursday by the Labor Department.
For the week ended December 31st, the Labor Department reported new unemployment claims coming in at a seasonally adjusted level of 372,000,
The Institute for Supply Management released a report on Thursday showing modestly faster growth in the service sector in the month of December, but the pace of growth accelerated by less than economists had been anticipating.
The ISM said its non-manufacturing index edged up to 52.6 in December from 52.0 in November.