Dollar rebounds on better US consumer sentiment

The U.S. dollar rose against most major currencies on Friday after falling for two consecutive days, as improved U.S. consumer sentiment offset downbeat consumer spending data. U.S. personal income decreased less than 0.1 percent in April, while personal consumption expenditures decreased 0.2 percent, the Commerce Department said on Friday. However, the final reading of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan U.S. consumer sentiment index increased from 76.4 in April to 84.5 in May, the highest level since July 2007. Meanwhile, the greenback rallied against the euro as eurozone unemployment rate edged up to a new record high of 12.2 percent in April from 12.1 percent in March. The dollar was pressured in the previous session after the Commerce Department revised down U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the first quarter to 2.4 percent from an initial estimate of 2.5 percent. In late New York trading on Friday, the euro fell to 1.2980 dollars from 1.3045 in the previous session, and the British pound decreased to 1.5182 dollars from 1.5219. The Australian dollar slipped to 0.9533 dollars from 0.9669. The dollar bought 100.67 Japanese yen, as against 100.95 in the previous session. It edged up to 0.9599 Swiss francs from 0.9536, and also climbed to 1.0367 Canadian dollars from 1.0301.