Thu Jul 1

By Manuela Badawy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar strengthened slightly against most major currencies on Thursday after generally solid economic data indicated a buoyant economy.

A day after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in four years to tame inflation, firm manufacturing and construction reports showed a healthy economy. The dollar, however, had minimal reaction.

The Fed raised rates by a quarter percentage point to 1.25 percent, making yields on U.S. assets more attractive to investors and so increasing demand for dollars.

The market, thin ahead of a long weekend in observance of U.S. Independence Day, awaited Friday's release of June's U.S. non-farm payrolls expected to show a rise of 250,000 new jobs, up 2,000 from the previous month.

"Today's data had little effect on the dollar. Solid data were right on expectations. But the market truly is looking ahead to tomorrow, although with summer doldrums we don't know how much price action we will get out of it either," said Greg Anderson, senior foreign exchange strategist at ABN-AMRO Bank in Chicago.

By early afternoon in New York, the euro traded at $1.2163 , down 0.2 percent, according to Reuters data.

The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index fell to 61.1 in June from 62.8 in May, matching economists' median forecast. Construction spending grew 0.3 percent in May, a smaller-than-expected gain, after a downwardly revised 1.2 percent rise the previous month. Markets were expecting growth of 0.7 percent.

The dollar earlier reacted little to a fairly soft U.S. jobless claims report. Claims rose to 351,000 in the week to June 26 from a revised 350,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said. Markets were expecting claims of 344,000.

"There are mixed signals going into tomorrow's data. Some of the weekly claims numbers over the last three, four weeks have been disappointing, which give some hint that perhaps the payrolls will be the same as or slightly worse than the previous month's number," Anderson said.

"We think it's still within the range consistent with forecasts of about 200,000 monthly employment growth going forward," said Sean Callow, currency strategist with IDEAGlobal in New York.

ECB KEEPS RATES, STRONG JAPANESE ECONOMY

Earlier, the European Central Bank held interest rates unchanged at 2.0 percent as expected, as inflation risks appear limited and the recovery path mixed in the euro zone.

A survey of manufacturers showed growth in the euro zone slowed in June because export demand was not strong enough to make up for lackluster spending by domestic consumers.

In Japan, the headline figure in the Bank of Japan's quarterly "tankan" survey was 22, jumping from 12 in March to its highest mark since August 1991 and exceeding market expectations for a reading of 17.

The survey's headline figure for large manufacturers, while remaining robust, was forecast at 21 for the next tankan survey in September.

Against the yen , the dollar fell to 108.24 yen, down roughly 0.6 percent. (Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez in New York)

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