The U.S. dollar declined for a third consecutive session against most major currencies on Thursday amid rising uncertainties about next week's U.S. presidential election.
The greenback had been lingering at eight-month highs on market speculation for a rate-hike in December after Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton winning the election.
However, investors' long-held bets of Clinton's victory have been shaken since the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced a plan on Friday to probe newly-found emails related to Clinton.
Clinton's lead over her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, has narrowed significantly since Friday's news broke, according to data from RealClearPolitics. Analysts said the greenback was under pressure as the market began to price in a Trump presidency.
On the economic front, in the week ending Oct. 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims was 265,000, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 258,000, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.
The Non-Manufacturing Index, which measures activity in the U.S. service sector, registered 54.8 percent in October, 2.3 percentage points lower than the September reading and well below market consensus, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said in its monthly survey.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major peers, was down 0.24 percent to 97.168 in late trading. In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.1104 dollars from 1.1096 dollars, and the British pound climbed to 1.2460 dollars from 1.2294 dollars. The Australian dollar increased to 0.7680 dollars from 0.7661 dollars. The dollar bought 103.00 Japanese yen, lower than 103.28 yen in the previous session. The dollar inched up to 0.9744 Swiss francs from 0.9728 Swiss francs, and it rose to 1.3400 Canadian dollars from 1.3388 Canadian dollars.
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