US dollar drops on data

Story link: US dollar drops on data

The US dollar was lower versus the Japanese yen Thursday as the Labor Department reported that the number of people receiving unemployment benefits rose again and after the Commerce Department said that US durable goods orders were down in December.

The Labor Department said that first-time jobless claims were up to 588,000 in the week ending 24 January, while those continuing to receive unemployment benefits rose to nearly 4.8 million in the week ending 17 January, a gain of 159,000 from the previous week and the most receiving the benefits in one week since the department began keeping records in 1967.

The number of continuing recipients of jobless benefits does not include the 1.7 million Americans who are now getting extended benefits; adding those individuals to the total brings the number of continuing recipients to around 6.5 million.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported that durable goods orders were down 2.6 percent in December, more than expected, and that orders fell by 5.7 percent for 2008 as a whole.

At around 11 a.m. in New York, the yen was trading at ¥89.895 to the US dollar while it was at ¥117.5405 to the euro and the greenback traded at $1.3075 to the shared currency.

Meanwhile, the Russian ruble declined to trade at 34.8945 to the US currency a few days after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made comments concerning a policy of devaluing the Russian currency gradually.

After the Reserve Bank of New Zealand reduced interest rates there to 3.5 percent, a cut of 1.5 percentage points, the greenback traded at 51.85 cents US to its New Zealand counterpart.