The dollar rose against a basket of major currencies as traders cheered mostly positive economic data and easing political turmoil in Washington.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, rose 0.09% to 90.22.
President Donald Trump and his chief of staff, John Kelly, have reached a “truce” following talks Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. That eased investor fears of fresh political turmoil in the Trump administration following Trump’s termination of Rex Tillerson earlier this week. This comes a day after CBS News reported, citing sources, that Kelly suggested he may leave the White House.
The U.S. Labor Department’s latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTs) report, a measure of labor demand, showed job openings in July improved to about 6.31m, beating expectations of 5.89m.
Housing starts fell 7.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.236 million units, the Commerce Department said on Friday. Permits for future home building decreased 5.7% to a rate of 1.298 million units.
Analysts said the plunge in housing starts was disappointing but played down the significance of the drop in permits, highlighting that the strong showing for permits seen in January was unlikely to be sustained.
Pantheon said it was “not surprised by the drop in permits as the 19% January leap in the multi-family sector was never going to be sustained,” but conceded that plunge in starts was “disappointing.”
USD/JPY fell 0.22% to Y106.12 but bounced from a more than one week low of Y105.60 as easing turmoil in Washington dented appetite for safe-haven yen.
USD/CAD rose 0.25% to C$1.3929, while GBP/USD fell 0.16% to $1.2285
EUR/USD fell 0.15% to $1.2287 amid weaker inflation data.
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