Dollar dips, trade thins on May Day after stormy week

By Patrick Graham

LONDON (Reuters) - A holiday in most of Europe thinned trade on Friday after a tumultuous week when the dollar dove, bond yields soared and stock markets in Europe and the United States weakened.

Analysts struggled for clarity on what was driving the moves. The changes seemed rooted in concern that recent softer numbers on the U.S. economy were not just caused by winter weather, as they were a year ago.

That means no-one is betting heavily on a swift recovery of the U.S. and European economies, but bond yields have jumped this week, driven by worries among investors that they are getting no interest on their money.

The resulting action, driven on by poor U.S. first-quarter growth numbers on Wednesday, has sent the dollar down 6 percent in just over a week. Bund yields racked up the biggest two-day jump since the euro zone crisis in 2011 and European stock markets have fallen for four days in a row.

All major European markets except London, its biggest, were closed on Friday, but the euro was up another 0.3 percent to a two-month high of $1.1270, its best week since October 2011.

U.S. stock markets looked set to open higher.

"Weak U.S. data, a bounce in oil prices and a pick-up in European growth ... all weighed on positioning and the fallout has been seen in higher Bund yields, a stronger euro, a weaker U.S. dollar and a bounce in the commodity-currency bloc," Societe Generale analysts wrote in a note to clients.

"Now we are back to waiting to see if the U.S. economic slowdown will reverse in the coming months."

Encouraging unemployment data were released on Thursday. The focus on Friday was the ISM survey of U.S. manufacturing sentiment survey later in the day.

Asian shares finished a touch higher on the day and London's FTSE 100 inched into positive territory after a weak start.

The dollar was roughly flat on the day against a basket of currencies at 94.649. Gains against the yen and sterling offset weakness against the euro.

"While it is true Thursday's data was good, we need a steady stream of good data for the dollar bull trend to be restored," ING FX strategist Petr Krpata said. "Right now there is a fair bit of doubt about the dollar's bull run."

Crude oil prices were lower after logging their best monthly gains in six years in April, helped by the dollar's weakening and bets that a supply glut would ease.

Brent crude stood at $66.30 a barrel, after reaching a 2015 peak of $66.93 and adding 21 percent in April. U.S. crude fell 0.2 percent to $59.52, after hitting a 2015 high of $59.85 in post-settlement trading.

(Additional reporting by Judy Hua and Pete Sweeney in Beijing, Lisa Twaronite in Tokyo; Editing by Larry King)