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NEW YORK: The US dollar fell against the euro but climbed against most key currencies on Tuesday amid mostly positive US economic data.
The euro changed hands at 1.2881 dollars in New York at 2100 GMT, higher than the 1.2822 dollars it fetched on Monday.
The dollar rose slightly against the Japanese currency, to 85.47 yen from 85.34 the previous day.
The euro had earlier bounced above 1.2900 dollars following news of a successful Irish bond auction but pulled back after a downbeat ZEW survey on German investor confidence.
The Irish government, struggling to manage its finances in the fallout from the Greek debt crisis, raised 1.5 billion euros (1.93 billion dollars) on Tuesday, the country's debt management agency said.
The sale was closely watched because heavily indebted Ireland needs to raise fresh funds to roll-over maturing debt while it restores public finances.
"There is no better test of investor confidence than bond auctions and the latest from Ireland show that demand was five times more than the amount of bonds on offer," said analyst Kathy Lien at Global Forex Trading.
"The positive results have provided support for the euro despite a mixed ZEW report," she said.
Sentiment for the dollar was also dented as positive US economic data spurred investors to buy riskier currencies such as the euro.
Investors usually cling to the safe-haven greenback during market turmoil.
The US government reported on Tuesday that construction of new homes edged up while industrial production recovered in July.
In addition, US wholesale prices rose in July for the first time in four months, easing immediate deflation fears in the world's largest economy.
"Today's report is the first positive surprise in over a month of consistently disappointing US data," said analyst Michael Woolfolk of Bank of New York Mellon. Wall Street stocks jumped on the positive data.
Woolfolk said that the US manufacturing sector especially continued to rebound "with considerable momentum" despite the recent "soft patch" in the world's largest economy.
"Given the buoyant mood in equities, it is no surprise that the safe haven dollar and yen continue to give up ground to the European majors."
Against other key currencies, the dollar rose to 1.0423 Swiss francs from 1.0392 while the British pound dipped to 1.5586 dollars from 1.5658.
- AFP/de
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