U.S. dollar rises amid economic data

NEW YORK, march 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. dollar climbed in late trading on Thursday as market participants digested a slew of economic data.

In the week ending march 2, U.S. initial jobless claims, a rough measure of layoffs, registered 223,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's revised level, the Department of Labor reported on Thursday.

Euro weakened sharply after the European Central Bank slashed its 2019 growth forecast to 1.1 percent from an earlier forecast of 1.7 percent.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.82 percent at 97.6696 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro was down to 1.1183 U.S. dollars from 1.1307 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound fell to 1.3074 dollars from 1.3171 dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar was down to 0.7010 dollar from 0.7027 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 111.53 Japanese yen, lower than 111.80 Japanese yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar increased to 1.0122 Swiss francs from 1.0049 Swiss francs, and it increased to 1.3455 Canadian dollars from 1.3420 Canadian dollars. Enditem