Investing.com - The euro rose to one-and-a-half week highs against the U.S. dollar on Friday, as hopes that a deal will be reached between Greece and its creditors before the end of the weekend lifted the single currency.
EUR/USD hit 1.1132 during European morning trade, the pair's highest since July 1; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.1114, advancing 0.70%.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.0991, Thursday's low and resistance at 1.1171, the high of July 1.
Greece offered to make painful spending cuts and hike taxes late Thursday, in a last-ditch request to win one more bailout from Europe before the country descends into bankruptcy.
Athens was seeking at least €50 billion over the next three years. In exchange, the government presented a number of austerity measures that were said to total between €12 billion and €13 billion - significantly more than Greece’s previous commitments.
The move brought Greece one step closer to a deal with its European creditors, who plan to make a final decision Sunday about whether to grant the country additional emergency loans.
In the meantime, the Greek government extended bank closures and the €60 daily limit on cash machine withdrawals until Monday.
Meanwhile, sentiment on the dollar remained vulnerable after data on Thursday showed that U.S. jobless claims rose to their highest level since February last week.
The Department of Labor reported that the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending July 4 increased by 15,000 to 297,000 from the previous week’s total of 282,000.
The euro was also higher against the pound, with EUR/GBP climbing 0.50% to 0.7212.