Dollar Falls on Weak U.S. Economic Data

NEW YORK, June 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. dollar fell against major currencies in late New York trading on Thursday as U.S. economic data showed weakness in job market, raising expectations of further easing policy.

The U.S. Labor Department reported that the initial jobless claims jumped more than expected last week to 386,000, raising concerns that the recovery of the job market might slow down.

Meanwhile, a separate report showed that the consumer price index dropped 0.3 percent in May, as energy prices declined broadly. However, excluding food and energy, the core CPI climbed 0.2 percent, in line with previous expectations.

The weakness in job market and declining price level raised investors' expectations of further monetary easing policies by the Federal Reserve, which is negative for the dollar. The dollar index lost 0.069 0 to 81.988 on Thursday.

Investors continued to pay attention to the European situation. The rating agency Moody's downgraded Spanish government bonds' ratings late Wednesday, as the situation of the country's banking sector deteriorated.

Italian government managed to sell government bonds with borrowing cost, reflecting investors' concerns about the country' s solvency ability.

However, the euro rebounded against the dollar on Thursday as the expectations of easing policy overcame European fear in currency market.

In late Thursday trading, the dollar bought 79.27 Japanese yen, compared with 79.33 from late Wednesday. The euro rose to 1.2600 dollars from 1.2589.

The British pound also rose to 1.5533 dollars from 1.5532. The dollar fell from 0.9540 Swiss francs to 0.9531, and also fell to 1. 0263 Canadian dollars from 1.0282.