The dollar's reprieve yesterday proved temporary, with renewed selling emerging this morning to take the euro well above the $1.22 figure and sterling to new 11-year highs.
The pound emerged among the morning's greatest beneficiaries of the fresh wave of dollar selling. At one point sterling hit $1.7500 before falling back slightly - in the process setting a series of new 11-year highs, eclipsing Wednesday's $1.7477 mark.
The October 28th minutes of the Fed's rate setting meeting revealed that although the US economy is likely to improve, labour market weakness may linger beyond the end of 2005.
The Fed's remarks led to a scaling back in US rate rise expectations and weighed on the dollar, analysts said.
Notably, the October minutes also said the dollar's weakness is helping US exports - suggesting that the Fed condones the US currency's decline even though official line still maintains that the strong dollar policy remains unchanged, analysts said.
On the whole, the dollar has been ambivalent to US data releases in the past few months, but the afternoon's trade numbers will be watched closely given the focus on the yawning US current account deficit.