American focus: Dollar recovers some of its losses on strong Philly Fed survey

The U.S. dollar tumbled Thursday, declining for a third straight session, after weak data provided yet more evidence to suggest U.S. economic growth has stalled.

But the buck took back some of its losses after the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index rose to a reading of 7.5 in April, a mild improvement from its March level, contrasting with weak jobless claims and housing-starts data released earlier in the day.

The euro (EURUSD) traded at $1.0700, compared with $1.0677 Wednesday. The single currency has recovered about half of its losses against the dollar from last week.

The dollar (USDJPY) traded at 119.28 yen, compared with Yen118.80 Wednesday. The buck has retraced nearly all of last week's gains against the Japanese currency.

Since the week began, U.S. economic data reports have been overwhelmingly negative, a sign that the moderation in growth seen during the first quarter, which many have attributed to harsh winter weather, has continued through the beginning of spring.

On Thursday, the Labor Department said initial jobless claims for last week rose to their highest level in six weeks. The Commerce Department's housing-starts data showed an improvement from February's disappointing read, but still saw fewer new-home construction projects began in March than economists had expected.

Elsewhere, the Australian dollar rose to its highest level since late March, after official data released Thursday showed an increase in employment that was nearly double what the market had expected.

"Overall this was an unambiguously strong report and stood in sharp contrast to expectations that slowdown in the mining sector would weigh heavily on labor data," said Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, in a note.

The Aussie (AUDUSD) traded at 77.88 cents, compared with 76.76 cents Wednesday.

The ICE U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), a measure of the dollar's strength against a basket of six currencies, was down 0.2% to 98.1660.