U.S. dollar rises on rate-hike expectation

NEW YORK, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. dollar increased against most major currencies on Thursday as hawkish remarks from several Federal Reserve officials raised market expectation for an interest-rate hike soon.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said Wednesday that the central bank policy makers should consider raising interest rates at their next meeting in April amid sound inflation outlook. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker also said Tuesday that he would like to see policy makers tightening borrowing costs "a little faster."

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.06 percent at 96.105 in late trading.

On the economic front, U.S. new orders for manufactured durable goods in February decreased 6.6 billion U.S. dollars or 2.8 percent to 229.4 billion dollars, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Thursday.

Meanwhile, in the week ending March 19, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims increased 6,000 from the previous week's revised level to 265,000, roughly in line with market expectations, U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.1179 dollars from 1.1184 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound rose to 1.4165 dollars from 1.4115 dollars. The Australian dollar went up to 0.7533 dollar from 0.7528 dollar.

The dollar bought 112.81 Japanese yen, higher than 112.41 yen of the previous session. The greenback increased to 0.9757 Swiss franc from 0.9749 Swiss franc, and inched up to 1.3238 Canadian dollars from 1.3206 Canadian dollars.