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NEW YORK, May 28, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) — The dollar was mixed against majorcurrencies on Thursday amid strong demand for U.S. government debtand some negative economic reports.

The U.S. Treasury sold a total of 101 billion dollars of debtthis week in three auctions, all drew strong demand. In theauction of 26 billion dollars seven year notes on Thursday, about33 percent of the notes were bought by indirect bidders, the classof investors that includes foreign central banks.

The so-called bid-to-cover ratio, which gauges demand bycomparing total bids with the amount of securities offered, was2.26 in the auction on Thursday. The auctions helped ease concernsabout rising borrowing costs and weakening demand for U.S.government debt from foreign investors.

The U.S. Commerce Department reported that new home sales inApril rose 0.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of352,000 units. The inventory of new homes at current sales ratesfell to 10.1 months.

U.S. foreclosure starts, the number of homes entering theforeclosure process, jumped to a new record high of about 700k inthe first quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.Delinquency rates, a leading indicator of foreclose, alsocontinued to rise.

New orders for durable goods rose by 1.9 percent in April, theCommerce Department said. This is not an encouraging reportbecause the increase was mainly driven by a huge jump in defenseorders. Orders for core nondefense capital goods fell by 1.5percent.

The Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims fellby 13,000 to 623,000 last week. The four-week moving average ofjobless claims also fell, while continuing jobless claims hit anew record high. The report showed U.S. labor market conditionsremain very poor but there were hopes that the worst has passed.

The euro bought 1.3962 dollars in late New York tradingcompared with 1.3919 dollars it bought late Wednesday. The poundfell to 1.5953 dollars from 1.6043 dollars.

The dollar fell to 1.1137 Canadian dollars from 1.1145 Canadiandollars, and fell to 1.0834 Swiss francs from 1.0869 Swiss francs.It rose to 96.91 Japanese yen from 95.20 Japanese yen.

<<XINHUA NEWS AGENCY — 05/29/2009>>