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NEW YORK - The dollar lost ground Friday as a weak reading on US consumer confidence offset a surprisingly robust report on housing starts.
The euro fetched 1.5582 dollars at 2100 GMT, up from 1.5445 late Thursday in New York.
The dollar was meanwhile trading at 104.07 yen after 104.74 on Thursday.
The greenback met selling pressure after the University of Michigan consumer confidence index was reported to have fallen to 59.5 in May from 62.6 in April, a lower reading than had been expected by the market.
Analysts said the reading reflected consumer reaction to rising oil prices, increased joblessness and lower real estate values.
The confidence data appeared to weigh more heavily with investors than a report from the Commerce Department that US homebuilding showed a surprisingly strong jump in April, signaling a ray of hope amid the rubble of the worst housing slump in decades.
Housing starts and permits hit their highest levels since February, and new home construction rebounded from a 17-year low in March, the Commerce Department said.
Starts rose 8.2 percent in April from March to an annual rate of 1.032 million units. It was the strongest gain since January 2006 and sharply higher than analysts' consensus forecast for a cutback to 940,000 units.
Analysts said the data was an encouraging sign that the housing market finally may be beginning to stabilize after the collapse of a real-estate bubble in 2006.
At the same time US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he believed a financial crisis, sparked by the near-meltdown in the US housing market, was winding down.
"In my judgment we are closer to the end of the market turmoil than the beginning," Paulson said in a speech in Washington to business leaders.
Boris Schlossberg at Forex Capital Markets said the yen got a brief lift from a report showing a better-than-expected 0.8 percent growth pace in the second-largest economy.
But for the dollar-euro rate he said "the standstill scenario is likely to hold" until the market gets a clearer picture of interest rates and the economic picture for the US and eurozone.
In late New York trade, the dollar stood at 1.0472 Swiss francs after 1.0565 Thursday.
The pound was at 1.9579 dollars from 1.9468.
- AFP /ls
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