The dollar held steady on Thursday as falls in the New Zealand dollar and the Australian dollar lent broad support to the greenback.
A sharp jump in New Zealand's jobless rate to a 10-year high of 7.3% weighed on the Kiwi. It shed 0.6% to US$0.6974 in afternoon trade after hitting a five-month low of US$0.6960.
The Aussie also came under pressure, touching a six-week trough of US$0.8772 on soft retail sales for December.
Concerns about the fiscal health of Greece, Portugal and Spain continued to drag on the euro but it was off a seven-month low hit earlier this week. The currency was last quoted at US$1.3892 and 126.2 yen.
All eyes are on central bank policy meetings later in the day. The European Central Bank and the Bank of England are seen keeping rates unchanged at 1.0% and 0.5% respectively but the BOE is expected to halt its quantitative easing program.
The dollar drifted around 90.90 yen on Thursday. The pair was down from Wednesday's two-week high of 91.28 driven by improving U.S. jobs and industry data.
The dollar index stood at 79.41 after rising to 79.52 earlier, on expectations that the U.S. economy will recover at a faster pace than other industralized nations.
Gold was steady at $1,109 an ounce as investors awaited Friday's non-farm payrolls for more clues on the state of the U.S. economy.
Oil slipped below $77 a barrel after a government report showed weekly U.S. crude inventories rising more than expected.
