The US dollar on Thursday gave up some of the gains it achieved after the Federal Reserveâs decision to raise interest rates, as the currency struggled to keep moving higher ahead of the Christmas holiday. The greenback moved lower against most of its major peers today.
The US currency found support in new data releases in the United States, which limited its decline today. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis published a report containing a revised gross domestic product growth rate for the third quarter of 2016. The revision, which is the third for the same quarter, showed an estimate of a 3.5% growth, which is higher than the second estimate of 3.2%.
The update was due to higher estimates of consumer spending and business investment. The growth rate of consumer spending was revised to 3%, from 2.8%. While business investments increased by a revised 1.4%, which compares to a significantly lower previous estimate of a 0.1% gain.
The US Department of Commerce also released its report for new orders and shipments of durable goods in November. The report said that demand for durable goods manufactured in the United States declined by $11 billion, or 4.6%, to $228.2 billion in the last month. However, when excluding the transportation category, new orders rose by 0.5%.
The dollar declined as traders collected profit before the holiday season amid very thin trading volumes. The currency reached its highest level in 14 years following an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve last week.
EUR/USD traded at 1.0435 as of 22:50 GMT on Thursday, after touching 1.0488 at 15:05 GMT, the pairâs highest level since December 15. EUR/USD opened trading today at 1.0427.
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