The dollar was off day lows in a relatively calm market, as investors kept one eye on data coming out from the world's largest economy, while keeping the other on any fresh news of further turbulence on credit markets. The lesser of today's two main pieces of US data came in on the strong side to help the dollar claw back some lost ground. New orders for durable goods in the US jumped 5.9 pct in May, up not just on the expected take-off in aircraft orders at Boeing, but with significant increases in demand for autos, communications equipment, machinery, metals and military equipment as well. It was the biggest increase in new durables orders since September of last year. Analysts had expected a far smaller increase of 1.1 pct following June's upwardly revised 1.9 pct growth. But there is a further test for the dollar to clear today at 3.00 pm BST when US property market figures are released. New home sales in the US are predicted to fall to an annual rate of 825,000 from 834,000 during the July. "There's a watch and wait market," said Gavin Friend at Commerzbank. Friend said that dollar's weakness "could be in anticipation that new home sales will be weaker". However, should this be the case, it could also "spark fresh fears of what's happening in the broader market," and increase opinion that the subprime contagion is spreading and thus support dollar instead. Conversely, if new home sales unexpectedly improve, then dollar may recover slightly if investors interpret this to mean the economy is not doing too badly, although this is unlikely to happen given the large inventory overhang, Friend added. Elsewhere, the pound was boosted against the dollar after the preliminary estimate for the UK's GDP was left unchanged, suggesting that growth in the British economy remains robust. "The second estimate of second quarter GDP suggests that there is plenty of momentum in the real economy to help it deal with any fallout from the financial market crisis," said Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics. However, she noted that the breakdown of the data showed that growth wasn't particularly balanced, with household and government spending rising, but investment and contributions from net trade falling.