USD falls versus yen

The US dollar declined in relation to the Japanese yen Thursday on separate government reports showing that the number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits went up again and that US durable goods orders dropped in December.

At around 11 a.m. in New York, the yen was trading at ¥89.895 to the US dollar while it was at ¥117.5405 to the euro and the greenback traded at $1.3075 to the shared currency.

The Labor Department issued new data showing that first-time jobless claims rose to 588,000 in the week ending 24 January, while those continuing to receive unemployment benefits rose to nearly 4.8 million in the week ending 17 January.

The number of those continuing to receive jobless benefits does not include the 1.7 million Americans who are now getting extended benefits.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said that durable goods orders were down 2.6 percent in December and that orders fell by 5.7 percent for 2008 as a whole.

The greenback rose, however, in relation to the Russian ruble and the New Zealand dollar.

The Russian ruble declined to trade at 34.8945 to the US currency a few days after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin talked about devaluing the Russian currency gradually, while the US dollar traded at 51.85 cents US to the New Zealand dollar after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut interest rates by 1.5 percentage points to 3.5 percent.

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