The U.S. dollar traded mixed against other major currencies on Tuesday as investors were awaiting the closely-watched Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's speech later this week. Yellen will speak at the Economic Policy Symposium at Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday. Investors expect to get some signals from her speech of the timing of Fed's next rate-hike.
Recent hawkish remarks by Fed officials have raised market expectation for an interest-rate hike by year-end. Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said over the weekend that the U.S. economy is close to meet the central bank's goals.
"We are close to our targets...Looking ahead, I expect GDP growth to pick up in coming quarters, as investment recovers from a surprisingly weak patch and the drag from past dollar appreciation diminishes," said Fisher in a speech on Sunday.
His comments came after San Francisco Fed President John Williams said on Thursday that the country's economy is strong enough to warrant a rate-hike soon.
On the economic front, U.S. new home sales came out positive. Sales of new single-family houses in July 2016 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 654,000, well above market estimates and logging the highest level since October 2007, said the Commerce Department Tuesday.
In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.1305 dollars from 1.1320 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound increased to 1.3192 dollars from 1.3131 dollars. The Australian dollar declined to 0.7617 dollars from 0.7624 dollars. The dollar bought 100.24 Japanese yen, lower than 100.29 yen in the previous session. The dollar rose to 0.9630 Swiss francs from 0.9618 Swiss francs, and it inched down to 1.2915 Canadian dollars from 1.2959 Canadian dollars.
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