The Australian dollar is more than one US cent lower, following weak global data followed by little economic news.

At 1700 AEST on Friday, the local currency was trading at 100.26 US cents, down from 101.61 cents on Thursday.

Commonwealth Bank currency strategist Peter Dragicevich said weak manufacturing figures from China, the US and Europe had pushed the Australian dollar down initially on Thursday, but since then, there was little to affect it.

“Late yesterday (Thursday), we saw some movement, when there was news of weakening in global manufacturing from the HSBC (preliminary purchasing managers index) measure and the euro zone flash (PPI) measures,” he said.

“Then there was the Philly Fed (Philadelphia Fed factory index) measure out in the US, and that was also weak.”

Mr Dragicevich said that news of possible downgrades to global banks by rating agency Moodys had also affected the market on Thursday night – but throughout Friday, the local currency had been quite flat.

With several meetings scheduled for euro zone leaders over the weekend, any concrete news for markets would probably come from Europe, Mr Dragicevich said.

“Tonight there’s a European Union finance ministers’ meeting, which builds on the euro zone finance ministers’ meeting yesterday,” he said.

“We also have a leaders’ meeting between (French president) Francois Hollande, (German chancellor) Angela Merkel, Italian prime minister Mario Monti and the Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy – they’re having a meeeting to discuss the crisis and prepare for next week’s summit.

“We’re not expecting anything to come out of that, but there could be the odd headline.”