1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises amid policy divergence

The U.S. dollar climbed against most major currencies on Tuesday as the Federal Reserve was moving closer to interest rates hike while central banks in Japan and Europe were on their way to launch more stimulus measures.

The greenback went up after the International Monetary Fund ( IMF) said in its updated World Economic Outlook (WEO) on Tuesday that the "U.S. is the only major economy for which growth projections have been raised," boosting market speculation that the Fed may lift interest rates earlier than expected.

In the report, the IMF predicted the U.S. economy would grow by 3.6 percent in 2015 and 3.3 percent in 2016, up 0.5 percentage point and 0.3 percentage point from previous forecasts. In contrast, IMF lowered its global economic growth forecast to 3.5 percent and 3.7 percent for 2015 and 2016 respectively. The global growth rates in 2015-2016 represented both downward revisions of 0.3 percent relative to the October 2014 WEO.

The European Central Bank was expected to unveil a bond-buying program during a policy meeting on Jan. 22 in an effort to fight deflation in the area. Meanwhile, policymakers in Japan consider expanding its monetary easing in a meeting ending on Jan. 21.

In late New York trading, the euro moved down to 1.1549 dollars from 1.1602 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound rose to 1.5158 dollars from 1.5109 dollars. The Australian dollar fell to 0.8176 dollars from 0.8207 dollars.

The U.S. dollar bought 118.81 Japanese yen, higher than 117.77 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar went down to 0.8790 Swiss francs from 0.8792 Swiss francs, and it climbed to 1.2097 Canadian dollars from 1.1956 Canadian dollars. Endite