By Hideyuki Sano

TOKYO, July 30 (Reuters) - The dollar eked out small gains
against the euro in early trade on Friday, but remained on the
defensive near a three-month low against a basket of currencies
on concerns U.S. growth may be disappointingly weak.

Dollar bears think U.S. second quarter GDP data due at 1230
GMT could provide a further opportunity to sell the currency
after a raft of U.S. economic data in the past month undershot
market expectations.

Economists forecast U.S. growth to slow to 2.5 percent in the
three months to June from 2.7 percent in the first quarter.

But some said market pessimism on the U.S. economy may have
gone too far.

"The dollar is coming under pressure due to worries about the
U.S. economy. But we think today's GDP figures will be reasonably
strong and thus limit downside for the dollar for now," said
Masafumi Yamamoto, chief FX strategist at Barclays Capital in
Tokyo.

The dollar stayed near a 12-week low against the euro, which
benefited from a jump in euro-zone economic sentiment to a
28-month high and a decline in German unemployment.

The euro slipped 0.1 percent against the dollar in early
Asian trade to $1.3060, though it is still not far from a 12-week
high of $1.3107 marked on Thursday

The next key resistance level for the single currency is seen
at $1.3125, the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement of the
peak-to-trough move from November 2009 to June.

On Thursday, the dollar slipped against both high-yielding
currencies such as the Australian dollar, as well as currencies
that tend to be favoured when risk appetite wanes, such as the
Swiss franc and the yen.

The Australian dollar slipped 0.1 percent in early Asian
trade to $0.8993, but not far from an 11-week high of $0.9060 hit
earlier in the week.

The dollar slipped 0.1 percent versus the yen to 86.74 yen,
edging towards a 7 1/2-month low of 86.27 yen hit earlier in the
month.

The yen showed no response to an unexpected fall in Japanese
industrial production. The market also shrugged off the news that
a group of Japanese lawmakers called for the BOJ to set an
inflation target of two to three percent.

The Swiss franc rose 0.1 percent, building on the 1.5 percent
gain it made on Thursday. The franc rose to 1.0402 franc per
dollar.
(Reporting by Hideyuki Sano; Editing by Joseph Radford)