1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar drops on weak data

The U.S. dollar declined against other major currencies Wednesday as economic data from the country came out worse than expected.

U.S. Commerce Department announced Wednesday that the advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April were virtually unchanged from the previous month, missing market expectation of a 0.2 percent gain.

Jay Morelock, an economist at FTN Financial, said in a note that "year-over-year retail sales have been falling since the end of last year, and are now at the lowest point since October 2009. With wage growth hovering near its four-year average, consumer spending will likely disappoint for months to come."

Meanwhile, U.S. import prices fell 0.3 percent in April from the previous month, the U.S. Labor Department reported Wednesday. The latest reading was well below market consensus of a 0.4 percent increase.

Some analysts believed that the Federal Reserve may postpone interest rates hikes this year due to negative economic data recently.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was down 1.03 percent at 93.564 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.1356 dollars from 1.1220 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound climbed to 1.5744 dollars from 1.5676 dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar went up to 0.8101 U.S. dollar from 0.7991 U.S. dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 119.13 Japanese yen, lower than 119.89 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar slipped to 0.9168 Swiss franc from 0.9286 Swiss franc, and it slumped to 1.1970 Canadian dollars from 1.1998 Canadian dollars. Endite