Investing.com - The U.S. dollar moved lower against its major counterparts in Asian trade Thursday, dragged down by a poor performance on Wall Street, which encouraged investors to cash in greenback holdings to cover losses.
In mid-day Asian trade, the greenback was lower against the euro, with EUR/USD rising 0.05% to hit 1.3550.
Earlier Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Barnanke said that the ailing U.S. labor market was a “national crisis that required attention from Congress and the White House.”
“We’ve had close to 10% unemployment now for a number of years, and of the people are unemployed, about 45% have been unemployed for six months or more. This is unheard of,” Bernanke added.
Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that core durable goods orders fell in August to a seasonally adjusted -0.1, down from 0.7% the previous month.
Economists had forecast the figure to rise 0.2% last month.
Wall Street endured its first losing session in three, as Greek debt concerns and a dim corporate profit outlook sparked aggressive sell-offs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.61%, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 2.17%, and the S&P 500 shed 2.07%.
Meanwhile, the greenback was lower against the British pound, with GBP/USD up 0.05% to hit 1.5583.
The dollar was lower against the Japanese yen up down against the Swiss franc with USD/JPY adding 0.10% to hit 76.53, and USD/CHF lower by 0.01% to hit 0.9000.
The greenback was lower against its Canadian, Australian and New Zealand counterparts with USD/CAD up 0.02% to hit 1.0336, AUD/USD down by 0.31% to hit 0.9747, and NZD/USD falling 0.32% to hit 0.7741.
The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was up 0.09% at 78.59.
Weekly figures for continuing and initial jobless claims were due out from the U.S. Department of Labor later Thursday.