Investing.com - The euro erased gains against the U.S. dollar on Friday, re-approachimg Thursday's one-and-a-half month trough as upbeat U.S. data fuelled further hopes for a U.S. rate hike in the near future, sending the greenback broadly higher.
EUR/USD pulled back from 1.0907, the session high, to hit 1.0852 during U.S. morning trade, slipping 0.23%.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.0817, the low of May 17 and resistance at 1.0963, Thursday's high.
The dollar strengthened broadly after data on Friday showed that the U.S. consumer price index rose 0.3% in June, in line with expectations and after a 0.4% gain the previous month. On a yearly basis, consumer prices rose 0.1% in June, in line with market expectations.
Core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.2% last month, in line with expectations and after an uptick of 0.1% in May.
A separate report showed that U.S. housing starts rose 9.8% to 1.174 million units in June from a revised total of 1.069 million units the previous month. Analysts had expected housing starts to increase by 6.2% last month.
U.S. building permits rose 7.4% to 1.343 million units last month from 1.250 million units in May, confounding expectations for a 11.8% drop.
Also Friday, the University of Michigan said, in a preliminary report, that its consumer sentiment index ticked down to 93.3 in July from 96.1 the previous month, confounding expectations for an unchanged reading.
The single currency had found some support earlier, after euro zone ministers agreed on Thursday to give Greece a €7 billion bridging loan from a European Union-wide fund to keep its finances afloat until a bailout is approved.
The loan was expected to be confirmed on Friday by all EU member states.
The news came after the European Central Bank increased its emergency lending to Greek banks by €900 million and added that it is operating under the assumption that Greece will remain in the euro zone.
The euro was steady against the pound, with EUR/GBP at 0.6970.