1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar mixed before ECB meeting

The U.S. dollar traded mixed against other major currencies on Wednesday and fell against the euro to one-week low before paring losses as investors were awaiting the closely-watched European Central Bank (ECB) meeting scheduled on Thursday.

The ECB was widely expected to unveil a bond-buying program during the policy meeting to fight deflation in the eurozone. Analysts said the market expectation for the ECB stimulus plan had already priced in. The euro/dollar rate touched a near one-week high of 1.1680 before slipping to 1.1591 in late trading.

The greenback dropped against the Japanese yen for the first time in four sessions as the Japanese central bank failed to extend its monetary easing when the latest policy meeting ended Wednesday.

On the economic front, U.S. housing starts jumped 4.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.089 million units in December 2014, the U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday. The figure was above economists' forecast.

In late New York trading, the euro moved up to 1.1591 dollars from 1.1549 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound decreased to 1.1524 dollars from 1.5158 dollars. The Australian dollar fell to 0.8089 dollars from 0.8176 dollars.

The U.S. dollar bought 117.94 Japanese yen, lower than 118.81 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar went down to 0.8605 Swiss francs from 0.8790 Swiss francs, and it climbed to 1.2349 Canadian dollars from 1.2097 Canadian dollars. Endite