* Euro rises to fresh 2009 high above $1.46
* U.S. weekly jobless claims fall
* U.S. trade deficit widens in July
(Adds comments, details)
By Vivianne Rodrigues
NEW YORK, Sept 10 (Reuters) - The euro rose versus the dollar on Thursday, hitting a new high for 2009 after a report showed a drop in the number of new U.S. jobless claims last week.
Analysts said the improvement in the weekly labor data supports investors' recent demand for riskier investments in stocks, commodities and other currencies.
The U.S. dollar tends to benefit from higher risk aversion in global markets as it is perceived as a safe-haven asset and sells off when appetite for risk increases.
"The jobless claims data looks like a pretty healthy improvement from the previous week. We saw a healthy decline in both the initial claims number and the continued claims component of the report," said Omer Esiner, a senior market analyst at Travelex Global Business Payments in Washington.
"What we're seeing this morning is a little bit of an improvement in risk appetite. As a result, the U.S. dollar is falling once again pretty much across the board," Esiner said.
The euro rose versus the dollar after the report and
briefly traded at $1.4606, its highest since December 2008. It
was last up 0.1 percent at $1.4574
The dollar also fell against the yen to trade 0.3 percent
lower on the day at 91.71 yen
The government report showed the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits fell last week to 550,000. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected initial claims to drop to 560,000. The data also showed the number of those collecting long-term aid tumbled. For details, see [ID:nN10384112]
In another release, the U.S. trade deficit for July widened the most in more than 10 years. The trade gap expanded 16.3 percent in July to $32.0 billion, the biggest month-to-month increase since February 1999. [ID:nN09221872]
(Additional reporting by Nick Olivari and Wanfeng Zhou in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)