Investing.com - The U.S. dollar edged up on Friday in Asia even after a set of weak U.S. data released overnight. The Aussie Dollar was little changed after sliding to a 10-day low yesterday.
The U.S. dollar index traded 0.1% higher to 96.500 by 12:10 AM ET (05:10 GMT) despite a slew of negative U.S. economic reports pointing to signs of slowing growth in the underlying economy.
The Philadelphia Fed said Thursday its manufacturing index fell to a reading of -4.1 in February from 17.0 last month.
The Commerce Department said core durable goods orders slowed to a rate of 0.1% in December, missing economists forecasts for a 0.2% rise.
The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales fell 1.2% in January from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.94 million units. Economists were expecting a 0.8% increase to 5.01 million homes.
Meanwhile, the AUD/USD pair was little changed on Friday after sliding more than 1% to a 10-day low the previous day on fears a ban on the country's coal by a Chinese port would hurt Australia's already slowing economy.
Reports that Westpac dropped a changed forecast for its Reserve Bank of Australia policy outlook were also cited as a headwind for the Aussie dollar.
The bank said it now expects two rate cuts from the RBA, the first in August 2019 to be followed with another in November 2019.
The GBP/USD pair traded 0.2% lower amid a lack of progress on Brexit talks just weeks ahead of the March 29 deadline when the U.K. is set to leave the EU.
The EUR/USD pair was unchanged at 1.1334.
The USD/JPY pair was up 0.1% at 110.75, while the USD/CNY pair also rose 0.1% at 6.7283.
Sino-U.S. trade talks remained in focus after Reuters reported on Thursday that Washington and Beijing have begun drawing up memorandums of understanding over trade.
The two sides are trying to reach a trade deal before a March 1 deadline, when additional tariffs on Chinese imports to the U.S. will go into effect.