1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar mixed ahead of nonfarm payrolls

The U.S. dollar traded mixed against other major currencies on Thursday as investors were awaiting the closely-watched U.S. nonfarm payroll report due out on Friday.

Thursday's U.S. economic data came out overall positive. U.S. Department of Commerce announced that the goods and services deficit narrowed to a five-year low of 35.4 billion U.S. dollars in February, down 7.2 billion dollars from the previous month.

Meanwhile, U.S. jobless claims fell more than expected last week, showing the labor market continues to expand at a solid pace. In the week ending March 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims decreased 20,000 to 268,000 from the previous week, the lowest reading since April 2000, according to the U.S. Labor Department Thursday.

The greenback was under pressure as investors took profits ahead of Friday's nonfarm payroll report, which will give them more clues of the strength of U.S. labor market. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was down 0. 78 percent at 97.424 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro increased to 1.0895 dollars from 1.0764 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound dropped to 1.4822 dollars from 1.4826 dollars. The Australian dollar went down to 0.7585 dollars from 0.7600 dollars.

The U.S. dollar bought 119.69 Japanese yen, higher than 119.61 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar edged down to 0.9590 Swiss francs from 0.9664 Swiss francs, and it slipped to 1.2567 Canadian dollars from 1.2620 Canadian dollars. Endite