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NEW YORK - The dollar rose against the other main currencies Thursday as investors looked for safety amid skittishness on global financial markets and a cautious outlook from a key think tank.
The euro slipped to 1.4922 dollars at 2200 GMT, compared to 1.4961 dollars late in New York on Wednesday.
The dollar fetched 88.99 yen from 89.34 yen.
"A wave of pessimism hit the global equity and commodity markets Thursday sending the dollar sharply higher as investors trim risk exposure," said Michael Malpede at Easy Forex.
The dollar was in high demand as global stock markets tumbled and gold prices ran into profit-taking after striking a record high Wednesday.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said growth in Europe had returned earlier than expected but warned the recovery would be slow and could be undermined by financial sector instability and unemployment.
The OECD also urged developed nations to keep economic stimulus measures in place, warned governments to tackle mounting debt and said growth was "likely to fluctuate around a modest underlying trend for some time to come."
The forecast "implies that central banks will keep interest rates on hold for longer than the market currently expects," said Camilla Sutton at Scotia Capital.
Sutton said a focus of the market is when the US Federal Reserve is likely too boost rates, and said "they will not enter a hiking cycle until unemployment has not only peaked but has begun to fall back."
On the unemployment front, fresh data, the seasonally adjusted number of new jobless claims in the week ending November 14 remained unchanged at 505,000, slightly higher than the 504,000 expected by most economists.
"Claims remain high enough to signal further payroll declines, but they are heading in the right direction and we are sticking to our view that employment will level off in the first half of next year, perhaps as soon as the end of the first quarter," said Ian Shepherdson, economist at High Frequency Economics.
In late New York trade, the dollar stood at 1.0127 Swiss francs from 1.0096 Wednesday.
The pound was at 1.6661 dollars after 1.6741.
- AFP /ls
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