A warning by Chinese officials indicating they would attempt to curb capital spending demand triggered some safe-haven flows into the Japanese yen in Asian trade, strategists said.
The U.S. dollar traded at 93.63 Japanese yen, down from 94.22 yen in New York late Wednesday.
The yen also strengthened against major currencies, with the Australian dollar trading at 77.90 yen from 78.02 yen, while the euro bought 133.56 yen from 134.23 yen.
Japan's Nikkei 225 Average closed 1.2% lower, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 ended down 0.1%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 1.6%.
U.S. initial weekly jobless claims and a second report on second-quarter U.S. gross domestic product will be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Economists polled by MarketWatch expect claims to slip to 565,000 and the second-quarter GDP to be revised lower to show a 1.5% contraction from a 1% contraction that the government previously estimated.
European stocks were mostly lower and U.S. stock-index futures were hovering near unchanged ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street. See Europe Markets. Read Indications.
Meanwhile, the euro advanced against the greenback, rising to $1.4255, from $1.4241, but the British pound lost ground, changing hands at $1.6179, down from $1.6230.
Strategists at KBC Bank in Brussels noted the euro/U.S. dollar currency pair has been locked in a narrow trading range since early June. With the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve both likely to maintain easy monetary policy conditions for some time to come, interest-rate expectations -- often a key driver of currency market moves -- are unlikely to play a major role any time soon, they argued.
That would tend to put the emphasis on risk appetite, with the euro likely to rise as equities gain ground and investors shun safe-haven assets such as the dollar and yen. But the stock market's recent gains have seen the link between the euro/U.S. dollar pair and global stocks weaken compared to the spring, leaving a "neutral and indecisive" trading picture.
The British pound, meanwhile, lost ground despite a further rise in U.K. house prices in August. Mortgage lender Nationwide said the average price rose 1.6% from July, marking a further improvement in the hard-hit property sector. See full story.
The dollar index (DXY 78.58, -0.08, -0.10%) , which tracks the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was at 78.582, losing ground from 78.660 late Wednesday.
