The U.S. dollar increased against most major currencies on Wednesday as the Federal Reserve minutes for its latest meeting bolstered the prospect of a year-end rate hike. Minutes from Fed's October meeting released on Wednesday showed that the central bank officials stressed that "it may well become appropriate" to raise the benchmark rate in its next policy meeting in December.
Most of Fed policy makers signaled that they would raise interest rates this year for the first time in a decade. Participants in the meeting "generally agreed that it would probably be appropriate to remove policy accommodation gradually," suggesting the pace of a rate hike will be slow.
On the economic front, U.S. privately-owned housing starts in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.06 million, below market estimates, said the Commerce Department Wednesday. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, stayed near a seven-month high of 99.598 in late trading.
In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.0647 dollars from 1.0650 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound climbed to 1.5227 dollars from 1.5213 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar dropped to 0.7091 dollar from 0. 7121 dollar.
The U.S. dollar bought 123.55 Japanese yen, higher than 123.40 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar hiked to 1.0196 Swiss franc from 1.0144 Swiss franc, and it went up to 1.3338 Canadian dollars from 1.3316 Canadian dollars.
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