NEW YORK, Sep. 23, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The U.S. dollar mixed against major currencies in late New York trading on Thursday as the U.S. unemployment was still high and Irish economy was not in good shape.
The Labor Department announced Thursday that the number of people filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose 12,000 to 465,000 in the week ended Sept. 18, while analysts were expecting the number to stay unchanged.
Reports showed slowing pace of Ireland's economy growth. Its GDP fell 1.2 percent in second quarter compared with the first quarter, surprising the market which predicted a 0.5-percent rise.
The concern on Irish economic situation spread to the whole euro zone and pushed down the euro. The euro against dollar fell below 1.34 after it touched a five-month high on Wednesday.
The dollar against yen continued to decline slightly as traders worried a further intervention by Japanese government if yen kept its upward trend.
In late Thursday trading, the dollar bought 84.38 Japanese yen compared with 84.54 yen late Wednesday, and the euro fell to 1. 3335 dollars from 1.3390 dollars.
The British pound rose to 1.5696 dollars from 1.5669 dollars. The dollar fell from 0.9870 to 0.9855 against Swiss francs, but rose to 1.0322 Canadian dollars from 1.0306 Canadian dollars.
