Investing.com - The euro was almost unchanged against the U.S. dollar on Friday, hovering near one-week highs as investors turned to U.S. nonfarm payroll data later in the day, while Thursday's comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's continued to support.
EUR/USD hit 1.3582 during late Asian trade, the session low; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.3584, easing 0.04%.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.3499, the low of February 5 and resistance at 1.3662, the high of January 30.
The greenback slightly weakened ahead of highly anticipated U.S. employment data later in the trading session, which was expected to give more indications on the strength of the labor market's recovery.
On Thursday, the Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell by 20,000 to 331,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 351,000. Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall by 16,000.
Meanwhile, the single currency remained supported after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the euro zone will not slide into deflation. Draghi said the ECB sees a protracted period of low inflation, not full blown deflation, reiterating that the bank is “monitoring developments closely".
The remarks came after the ECB voted to leave interest rates across the euro zone unchanged at their record low of 0.25%.
Investors shrugged off data on Friday showing that Germany's trade surplus narrowed to EUR18.5 billion in December, from EUR18.9 billion the previous month. Analysts had expected the trade surplus to narrow to EUR17.3 billion in December.
The euro was lower against the pound, with EUR/GBP slipping 0.13% to 0.8315.
Later in the day, Germany was to publish reports on industrial production, while the U.S. was to release data on nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate.