The euro has risen past the USD 1.30 mark overnight to near an eleven week high this morning.

The single currency has edged up by 0.2pc to USD 1.3014, taking it near to its 11-week high of USD 1.3047 earlier this week.

It has, however, dipped against the yen overnight, pulling away from a recent two-month high on selling by Japanese exporters.

A trader for a Japanese bank cited euro-selling by Japanese exporters before the month-end, adding that more offers were likely to emerge if the euro rebounds and rises towards 115 yen.

"A lot of exporters are waiting at levels above 115 yen," the trader said.

The dollar slipped 0.3 percent against the yen to 87.19, extending losses after data on Wednesday showed new US durable goods orders unexpectedly fell for a second straight month in June.

Still, the core measure of orders excluding aircraft and defence rose 0.6 pc in June, on top of an upwardly revised 4.6 pc jump in May, suggesting activity was not nearly as soft as the headline number suggested.

The dollar is likely to find support against the yen at levels around 86.80 yen, near the dollar's intraday low hit on Monday and Tuesday, said Teppei Ino, a technical analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. "There aren't strong reasons to bid up the yen beyond those levels at the moment, especially ahead of key U.S. data on Friday," Ino said. U.S. second-quarter gross domestic product data is due out tomorrow. A recent string of lacklustre US economic data has weighed on the greenback and led investors to cut short positions in the euro. The single currency touched an 11-week high against the dollar earlier this week, helped by strong bank earnings and gains in European equities, following last week's favourable results of regulatory stress tests. The dollar index was down 0.3 pc at 81.956, with near-term support around 81.44, a 50 pc retracement of the index's move from a low of 74.17 in November 2009 to a high near 88.71 in June. The US Federal Reserve's Beige Book yesterday pointed to a less-than-booming recovery with sluggish housing markets and sales of costly items like new cars weakening. (c) Reuters