Investing.com - The dollar held steady against the other major currencies in light trade on Thursday, after the release of disappointing U.S. jobless claims data.
EUR/USD held steady at 1.1165.
The greenback showed no reaction to a report by the U.S. Department of Labor saying that initial jobless claims in the week ending June 17 increased by 3,000 to 241,000 from the previous week’s total of 238,000.
Analysts expected jobless claims to rise by 2,000 to 240,000 last week.
GBP/USD was almost unchanged at 1.2663.
Elsewhere, USD/JPY was little changed at 111.31, while USD/CHF held steady at 0.9731.
The Australian dollar was weaker, with AUD/USD down 0.13% at 0.7543, while NZD/USD climbed 0.76% to 0.7263.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand earlier held the benchmark interest rate at 1.75%, in a widely expected move, and indicated that it has no plans to hike rates anytime soon.
“Monetary policy will remain accommodative for a considerable period,” RBNZ Governor Graeme Wheeler said in a statement.
Wheeler added that “a lower New Zealand dollar would help rebalance the growth outlook towards the tradables sector,” but also noted the currency’s recent gains were partly driven by higher export prices.
Meanwhile, USD/CAD dropped 0.58% to trade at 1.3257 after Statistics Canada said retail sales rose 0.8% in April, beating expectations for a 0.2% uptick.
Core retail sales, which exclude automobiles, increased by 1.5% in April, compared to expectations for a 0.7% gain.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was steady at 97.21.