The dollar was about to end its eighth consecutive week of decline against the euro on Friday, with the bleak economic outlook for the United States weighing on the greenback.

Around 19:30 GMT (21:30 in Paris), the euro gained 0.18% against the American currency, to 1.1835 dollars. It has risen 0.41% since last Friday

Since its lowest point of the year at the end of March, the single European currency has risen by more than 11% against the greenback.

On Friday, traders became aware of mixed figures on retail sales in the United States in July, published by the Commerce Department.

They certainly increased by 1.2% compared to June, but the pace is lower than in the two previous months and the increase is smaller than expected.

American consumer confidence changed little in July (+0.3 points), according to the preliminary index of the University of Michigan.

On Thursday, investors took note of weekly employment data.

Some 963,000 people registered for unemployment in the United States between August 2 and 8, down from 1.19 million the previous week and compared to the 1.15 million expected by analysts.

It is “still very high but it shows a gradual recovery of the labor market in the United States”, reassured Ipek Ozkardeskaya, analyst for Swissquote Bank.

But the dollar continued to suffer on Friday from the lack of agreement between Democrats and Republicans on a new stimulus package.

The White House and Democratic Congressmen have been discussing additional relief measures for households, businesses and local authorities affected by the pandemic crisis to no avail for more than two weeks.

Faced with the failure of the negotiations, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders on Saturday, including one temporarily granting 400 dollars per week to the unemployed, instead of the 600 dollars they had been receiving since April. This aid, intended to deal with the crisis, came to an end on 31 July.

 Friday classes Thursday classes
 19:30 GMT 21:00 GMT
 
EUR/USD 1.1835 1.1814

EUR/JPY 126.16 126.32

EUR/CHF 1.0764 1.0747

EUR/GBP 0.9043 0.9041

USD/JPY 106.60 106.93

USD/CHF 0.9095 0.9097

GBP/USD