U.S. dollar dips as euro, sterling rise

NEW YORK, April 13 (Xinhua) — The U.S. dollar weakened in late trading on Wednesday amid strength in the euro and the British pound.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, fell 0.42 percent at 99.8750.

In late New York trading, the euro increased to 1.0889 U.S. dollars from 1.0834 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound rose to 1.3110 dollars from 1.3007 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar was down to 0.7447 U.S. dollar from 0.7461 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 125.60 Japanese yen, higher than 125.28 Japanese yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 0.9341 Swiss franc from 0.9320 Swiss franc, and it was down to 1.2568 Canadian dollars from 1.2634 Canadian dollars.

Traders will look to a key policy meeting from the European Central Bank on Thursday.

Meanwhile, data released Tuesday showed U.S. inflation surged to a fresh four-decade high in March, solidifying market expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates aggressively in the coming months.

“As it seems clear that the Fed will take decisive action against the risks of inflation, any data that comes in above expectations is likely to fuel concerns amongst market participants that it might overshoot and even throttle the economy. That in turn would be negative for the dollar,” Antje Praefcke, analyst at Commerzbank Research, said Wednesday in a note.