The U.S. dollar continued weakening against most major currencies on Thursday amid increasing uncertainties about the timing of Federal Reserve's tapering.

The upbeat jobless claims report released on Thursday increased the possibility that the Fed would start scaling back its bond- buying scale soon.

The number of Americans who initially applied for unemployment aid last week edged up from a five-year low, but the increase was weaker than expected, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Several Fed officials also recently said they believed the U.S. central bank could begin trimming its asset purchases program later this year but the Fed didn't give a hint of its tapering timeframe after its monetary last week.

The greenback has dropped against major currencies for the fifth consecutive days. However, analysts believe the dollar will regain strength once the Fed starts to tight its monetary policy.

The Bank of Japan ended a two-day policy meeting on Thursday and kept its monetary policy unchanged. The yen stayed calm against its major peers.

The Australian dollar rallied after data showed that its largest trading partner, China saw a 5.1-percent year-on-year exports growth in July, recovering from June's decline.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.3387 dollars from 1.3332 dollars of the previous session and the British pound increased to 1.5546 dollars from 1.5498 dollars. The Australian dollar climbed to 0.9119 dollars from 0.8990 dollars.

The dollar bought 96.53 Japanese yen, higher than 96.38 yen of the previous session. It edged down to 0.9196 Swiss francs from 0. 9217 Swiss francs and went up to 1.0317 Canadian dollars from 1. 0423 Canadian dollars.