The U.S. dollar retreated against most major currencies Thursday amid rising jobless claims in the United States and softened geopolitical tensions.
The greenback fell earlier in day after the U.S. Labor Department reported the number of Americans who initially applied for jobless benefits jumped 21,000 to 311,000 for the week ending Aug. 9, more than market expected.
However, the dollar trimmed some losses on signs that geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East eased.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that his country will spare no efforts to facilitate an earliest end to the conflict in southeastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Palestinian and Israeli delegations in Cairo agreed late Wednesday night to a further five-day ceasefire in their ongoing conflict in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.
In the previous trading, the U.S. dollar retreated as data showed U.S. retail and food services sales for July were virtually unchanged from the previous month, the weakest performance since January.
Meanwhile, the yen was still pressured by the newly reported economic contraction. The Japanese government said Wednesday Japan 's gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2014 shrank 6.8 percent from a year earlier, down at the fastest pace since the March 2011 disaster.
In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.3367 dollars from 1.3369 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound decreased to 1.6686 dollars from 1.6688 dollars. The Australian dollar climbed to 0.9317 dollars from 0.9304 dollars.
The dollar bought 102.47 Japanese yen, higher than 102.45 yen of the previous session. The dollar went down to 0.9065 Swiss francs from 0.9073 Swiss francs, and it moved down to 1.0908 Canadian dollars from 1.0918 Canadian dollars.