Mubasher: Preliminary official reading indicated that US retailers saw a 0.5% sales growth in May, compared with the growth in the revised reading for April.

Retail and food services sales came in at $519 billion last May, up from a revised $516.2 billion in the prior month, with an annual gain of 3.2%, the US Census Bureau reported on Friday.

By 12:24 pm GMT, the US dollar index rose by 0.08% to 97.09.