The currency markets showed no immediate reaction to news that North Korea's much hyped long-range rocket apparently crashed into the sea a few minutes after launch on Friday.
China's annual economic growth slowed to 8.1 percent in the first quarter of 2012 from 8.9 percent in the previous quarter, falling short of economists' forecast of 8.3 percent and well below an improbably high 9 percent expectation that swirled in markets and boosted risk assets on Thursday.
This saw the euro slip to $1.3176 from a one-week high of $1.3213 on Thursday, keeping the risk-sensitive currency below major resistance level at $1.3209, where it has a 50 percent retracement of its decline since late March and its 55-day moving average.
The Australian dollar fell 0.3 percent to $1.0400, shedding some of its big gains on Thursday on a surprisingly strong local jobs report and strong loans numbers from China, the country's single biggest export market.
Its rebound was so far blocked by resistance on daily Ichimoku charts at about $1.0450, where it has a cloud bottom and a kijun line, making that level pivotal for the currency from a chartist's point of view.
The chances of the euro and the Aussie clearing major resistance remain in place, some analysts say, as other Chinese data such as March retail sales and industrial output was in line with expectations.
"While there was a knee-jerk market reaction to softer-than-expected GDP, figures for March were not that bad, which suggests some stabilisation after weakness in earlier months," said Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ analyst Teppei Ino.
Risk sentiment was also bolstered on Thursday as Italian debt rallied for a second day after clearing its latest round of bond auctions.
Against that backdrop, the dollar extended its rebound versus the Japanese yen on Friday, with some traders citing talk of Japanese investors buying of foreign assets at start of the new financial year this month.
In Asia, the dollar edged up 0.2 percent to 81.10 yen , extending gains from Wednesday's six-week low of 80.57 yen.
Neither the yen nor the South Korean won showed any reactions to the apparently failed rocket launch by North Korea, although most market players had expected limited market impact as the launch, successful or not, would have few implications for the region's economic outlook.
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