Dollar remains mostly lower, eyes on U.S. debt talks

Investing.com - The dollar remained mostly lower against the other major currencies on Friday, as investors hoped for a U.S. debt deal to be concluded shortly, as concerns over a potential sovereign default persisted.

During European afternoon trade, the dollar was steady against the yen, with USD/JPY inching up 0.07% to 98.22.

No deal emerged after a 90-minute meeting between President Barack Obama and Republican leaders on Thursday, but talks continued into the night in an effort to reopen the government and avoid a possible U.S. debt default.

Republicans offered to extend the government's borrowing authority for several weeks, temporarily putting off a default, while Obama was pushing to also reopen government operations that have been closed since October 1.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew reiterated Thursday that the U.S. will reach its debt ceiling on October 17 and warned that the political crisis is starting to hurt the economy. The comments came during testimony to the Senate finance committee.

Earlier Friday, Japan Minister of Economy Akira Amari urged U.S. politicians to show some responsibility, saying that if the current shutdown was allowed to continue, the U.S. could default on its debt.

The euro was higher against the dollar, with EUR/USD rising 0.35% to 1.3567.

The dollar was steady against the pound, with GBP/USD up 0.01% to 1.5967, and lower against the Swiss franc, with USD/CHF shedding 0.44% to hit 0.9075.

Markets shrugged off the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee decision on Thursday to leave its benchmark interest rate on hold at 0.5% and made no changes to its GBP375 billion quantitative easing program.

Elsewhere, the greenback was broadly lower against its Australian, New Zealand and Canadian counterparts, with AUD/USD edging up 0.21% to 0.9473, NZD/USD climbing 0.75% to trade at 0.8345 and USD/CAD slipping 0.15% to 1.0383.

In Canada, official data showed that the number of employed people rose by 11,900 in September, above expectations for a 10,000 increase, after 59,200 rise the previous month.

The report also showed that Canada's unemployment rate ticked down to 6.9% last month, from 7.1% in August. Analyts had expected the unemployment rate to slip to 7.0% in September.

The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.24% to 80.38.

Later in the day, the University of Michigan was to release preliminary data on consumer sentiment.