US dollar gains on hawkish Fed remarks

Atlanta Federal Reserve President Dennis Lockhart said Monday that `there is enough positive momentum in the economic data to justify another move at one of the upcoming meetings, possibly as early as the gathering scheduled for April.`His words were echoed by San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams. `All else equal, assuming that things stay pretty much on track and the data flow continues to come in as expected and forecast, then certainly April or June would be potential timing for a rate increase,` Williams said Monday.The greenback jumped against major currencies after the hawkish comments. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was up 0.24 percent at 95.310 in late trading.On the U.S. economic front, total existing-home sales decreased 7.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.08 million units in February from 5.47 million in January, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday.In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.1248 U.S. dollars from 1.1270 U.S. dollars in the previous session, and the British pound decreased to 1.4396 U.S. dollars from 1.4480 U.S. dollars. The Australian dollar dropped to 0.7595 U.S. dollar from 0.7602 U.S. dollar.The U.S. dollar bought 111.86 Japanese yen, higher than 111.57 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 0.9697 Swiss franc from 0.9692 Swiss franc, and edged up to 1.3067 Canadian dollars from 1.3020 Canadian dollars, Xinhua reported. (A026)
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
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