11-7-08 DollarOK.com: The dollar slipped against the euro but climbed against the pound and yen in trading Friday as the U.S. unemployment rate rose to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent.
Stocks traded higher in New York despite a grim report out of Washington saying employers cut 240,000 jobs in October on top of 284,000 in September. The Dow Jones industrials rose 248 points in light trading.
The dollar has tended to benefit from bad news this fall. Signals of recession have unnerved investors, driving them out of stocks and emerging-market currencies and into safe havens such as government Treasurys and the dollar. But with equities rising in Asia, Europe and the U.S. on Friday, the dollar was trading down ahead of the weekend.
The 15-nation euro inched up to $1.2746 in New York trading from $1.2735 late Thursday, while the British pound fell to $1.5701 from $1.5753.
On Thursday, the European Central Bank and Bank of England cut their respective interest rates by half a percentage point and a surprising 1.5 percentage points.
Lower interest rates can help prompt economic activity, but also typically drive investors away from a currency as they seek higher returns elsewhere.
The central banks of Switzerland, Denmark and the Czech Republic cut their rates as well.
Meanwhile, the dollar rose to 98.11 Japanese yen from 97.82.
On Friday, the Labor Department said that the unemployment rate rose to 6.5 percent in October from 6.1 percent in September, while 240,000 jobs were cut. It is the tenth consecutive month of payroll drops.
In other trading, the dollar rose to 1.1774 Swiss francs from 1.1762 francs late Thursday, and fell to 1.1878 Canadian dollars from 1.1887.
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