Investing.com -- EUR/USD was relatively flat one session after surging to monthly-highs, amid solid U.S. economic data and ahead of an emergency session in the Greek Parliament on Thursday night where an €86 billion bailout will be debated and potentially ratified.
The currency pair traded in between 1.1081 and 1.1189, before settling at 1.1155, down 0.0003 or 0.03%. The mild sell-off halted a slight winning streak, where the euro closed higher against the dollar for three straight sessions and six of the previous eight. EUR/USD is up modestly by approximately 0.25% over the last month of trading.
The pair likely gained support at 1.0808, the low from July 20 and was met with resistance at 1.1218, the high from July 10.
In the U.S.,initial jobless claims remained near historic lows at 274,000 last week, just above consensus estimates of 270,000. The four-week average, meanwhile, fell by 1,750 to 266,250, a level approximately 15,000 lower from a month earlier. The report comes days after the U.S. Labor Department provided an optimistic outlook for the labor market after reporting that non-farm payrolls for the month of July increased by 215,000, while the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.3%.
At the same time, U.S. retail sales surged by 0.6% last month, above analysts' expectations for a 0.5% gain. The U.S. Census Bureau also upwardly revised retail sales figures for May and June, providing optimism for positive overall gains for the second quarter.
Elsewhere, the People's Bank of China resumed its push to stabilize its currency two days after devaluing the yuan by nearly 2%. Despite further efforts from the central bank to prop up its fledgling currency USD/CNY remained at near four-year highs at 6.40 after the Chinese central bank cut the Yuan Reference Rate by 1.1%.
During a press conference in Beijing, PBOC deputy governor Yi Gang said the central bank is hoping to accelerate foreign exchange market development by improving its yuan pricing mechanism both offshore and on the China mainland. In addition, Gang emphasized that the PBOC has ample foreign exchange reserves to provide strong support for significant depreciations in the currency. Gang also went to great lengths to dismiss reports that the PBOC could depreciate the yuan by as much as 10% on a long-term basis.
The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the strength of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, rose more than 0.25% to an intraday high of 96.84 before falling back to 96.40 at the close. On Wednesday, the index fell to a monthly-low at 95.94.
Yields on the U.S. 10-Year rose four basis points to 2.19%, while yields on the Germany 10-Yearincreased three basis points to 0.63%.