Thursday saw the Japanese yen continue its up-and-down week as it fell to two-week lows against the US dollar. Earlier in the week uncertainty around the U.S economic recovery had seen demand for the yen (a safe-haven currency) rise. However a report released on Thursday showed that although US initial jobless claims rose last week, the underlying trend pointed towards improvements in the labour markets condition. The dollar was up almost 0.75% against the yen on Thursday, its highest since October 10th.
The Australian dollar continued to fall against its US counterpart on Thursday, as Wednesday’s US inflation data continued to show support for the greenback. However, there were signs of recovery as export-dominated currencies were assisted by positive Chinese manufacturing data.