LONDON (AFX) - The dollar was down against all other major currencies in early London trade, weighed down by ongoing weakness in equity markets They said that any weakness in today's major US economic data, including initial jobless claims, existing home sales and Q1 employment cost index, would keep the downward pressure intact. "It is a case of broad-based dollar softness, translated into a sub-129 yen and the euro having a crack at the 0.8950 usd mark", said Jeremy Hawkins, economist at Bank of America. People are getting a little bit more cautions about the speed of recovery in the US, said Hawkins. He added that weak durable goods orders last night as well as the Federal Reserve May 7 Beige Book meeting helped a raise a few more concerns. "That has been reflected in expectations about the first Fed monetary tightening being pushed further out," he said. "This made people a little bit more nervous about the dollar and that much more concerned about prospects on the current account deficit," he added. WestLB Michael Klawitter, agreed. "Although the Fed's Beige Book was more upbeat than expected, the weakness in the March durable goods data once again highlighted that the pace of the US economic recovery is far from clear." "Risks for a softer dollar are on the rise," they added. Meanwhile, the euro was trading at the highest level since mid January, but solely on the back of the softer dollar. "There really isn't enough goods news coming out of Europe to justify a stronger euro," said Hawkins. The start of the strike ballot in the IG Metall area together with the EU commission forecast yesterday highlighting overshooting budget deficits, and evidences of European growth underperforming the US, do not call for a strong currency, he added. But economists' views diverged as to whether the unit would weather a weaker-than-expected German Ifo index, due out at 9.00 am today. Sterling was also firmer ahead of the release of the retail sales figures for March, due at 9.30 am Economists' eyes will be on the data, which they said has great implications for possible Bank of England's monetary policy tightening in May. "Anything much stronger than a 0.3 pct rise on the month and tightening speculations would start picking up again," added Hawkins. The yen also strenghtened as the dollar softened and as the Japanese current account surplus continues to rise following a fall over the last three years.