1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises despite downbeat data

The U.S. dollar rallied against other major currencies on Thursday despite the overall negative economic data from the country.

The U.S. Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers declined 0.7 percent in January on a seasonally adjusted basis, said the U. S. Labor Department Thursday. It was the biggest drop since 2008 on falling energy prices and beat market consensus of a 0.6 percent decline.

Analysts said the low inflation pressure of the country made it difficult for the central bank to raise interest rates in the near future.

Meanwhile, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims in the week ending Feb. 21 increased 31,000 from the previous week's revised level to 313,000, exceeding market expectations of 285,000, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.

However, new orders for manufactured durable goods in January rose 2.8 percent to 236.1 billion dollars, beating market consensus, said the U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major peers, was up 1.14 percent at 95.290 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro decreased to 1.1199 dollars from 1.1356 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound dropped to 1.5406 dollars from 1.5526 dollars. The Australian dollar went down to 0.7795 dollar from 0.7889 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 119.44 Japanese yen, higher than 118.86 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar went up to 0.9536 Swiss francs from 0.9475 Swiss francs, and it increased to 1.2527 Canadian dollars from 1.2429 Canadian dollars. Endite