Forex - Dollar broadly lower vs. rivals on new EU hopes

Investing.com - The U.S. dollar was broadly lower against its major counterparts on Thursday, as announced measures to tackle Greece's financial troubles and avoid debt contagion in the euro zone weighed on demand for the greenback.

During European morning trade, the dollar was sharply lower against the euro, with EUR/USD rising 0.75%% to hit 1.4012.

The single currency found support after European leaders reached an agreement with private banks on a voluntary 50% reduction of Greece's debt. The writedown will reduce Greece’s debt burden from 160% of GDP to a more sustainable 120% by 2020.

Leaders also agreed to expand the firepower of the euro zone's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.

The greenback was also lower against the pound, with GBP/USD easing up 0.10% to hit 1.5992.

But, the pound remained under pressure after the Bank of England implemented a second round of monetary easing earlier this month, amid concerns over weakening economic conditions in the U.K.

Meanwhile, the greenback was down against the yen, hovering close to record low and the Swiss franc with USD/JPY dropping 0.49% to hit 75.80 and USD/CHF declining 0.70% to hit 0.8749.

Earlier Thursday, Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi reiterated that his country would take decisive action against excessive yen moves.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan announced additional monetary easing to help lower the yen. The central bank expanded its asset purchase program by JPY5 trillion to JPY55 trillion yen and kept the overnight lending rate at 0.1%.

Elsewhere, the greenback was sharply lower against its Canadian, Australian and New Zealand counterparts, with USD/CAD dropping 0.89% to hit 0.9953, AUD/USD surging 2.04% to hit 1.0611 and NZD/USD jumping 1.54% to hit 0.8135.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand left its interest rate unchanged at 2.50% earlier, saying that recovery needs more stimuli to return back strongly on track before the end of the year.

Official data also showed that New Zealand's trade deficit expanded unexpectedly in September to NZD751 million from NZD697 million the previous month.

The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.78% to hit 75.84.

Later in the day, the U.S. was to publish preliminary data on third quarter GDP, as well as the GDP price index, the broadest measure of inflation. The country was also to publish its weekly data on initial jobless claims.