The dollar fell against the euro and yen on Friday as the market readied for key US jobs data, traders said.
In late morning trading here, the European single currency rose to 1.3720 dollars from 1.3704 dollars in New York late on Thursday.
Against the Japanese unit, the dollar dropped to 90.69 yen from 91.11 yen on Thursday.
All eyes were on US non-farm payroll figures due out later in the day, said Junya Tanase, foreign exchange strategist at JPMorgan Chase Bank.
Analyst forecasts were for at least 500,000 job losses in December and a rise in the unemployment rate, which would highlight the weak state of the world's biggest economy.
Market-watchers said there was a chance the report could be even gloomier than expected, which could weigh on the dollar.
"Weaker-than-expected figures would lead to dollar selling," said Tanase.
The euro had earlier fallen versus the dollar in Asian deals, weighed down by expectations of an interest rate cut by the European Central Bank next week, traders said.
ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet warned of a "significant deterioration in the real economy" and "the possible threat of deflation," adding to speculation about a rate cut Thursday.
Even though the eurozone slid into recession in the third quarter of 2008, retailers in the 15 countries using the euro last year saw demand pick up in November, official EU data showed on Friday.
The volume of retail sales in the eurozone rose 0.6 percent in November over one month, limiting the fall over one year to 1.5 percent, the European Union's Eurostat data agency said.
The result exceeded economists expectations for retail sales to rise only 0.2 percent over one month, as polled by Dow Jones Newswires. However, the fall over one year was marginally bigger than the 1.4 percent forecast over one year.
The eurozone counts 16 members since Slovakia adopted the single currency at the beginning of the month.
The British pound meanwhile dropped in European deals, giving back some of Thursday's gains, which came after a 50-basis-point interest rate cut by the Bank of England (BoE) to an all-time low of 1.5 percent.
Some traders had been betting on an even bigger reduction.
In London trading, the euro changed hands at 1.3720 dollars against 1.3704 dollars late on Thursday, at 124.14 yen (124.87), 0.9021 pounds (0.8996) and 1.4941 Swiss francs (1.4983).
The dollar stood at 90.69 yen (91.11) and 1.0916 Swiss francs (1.0931).
The pound was at 1.5177 dollars (1.5230).
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold dropped to 854.60 dollars an ounce from 855.75 dollars late on Thursday.
