1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises against other currencies

The U.S. dollar gained against other currencies Tuesday as upbeat economic data boosted rate hike forecast.

The Commerce Department said in a report that U.S. sales of new single-family houses in April 2015 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 517,000, beating market consensus. This is 6.8 percent above the revised March rate of 484,000 and is 26.1 percent above the April 2014 estimate of 410,000.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, showed that the 10-City Composite gained 4.7 percent year over year in March, while the 20-City Composite added 5 percent.

Markets were still reflecting on Yellen's speech delivered on Friday. "If the economy continues to improve as I expect, I think it will be appropriate at some point this year to take the initial step to raise the federal funds rate target," she said.

In late New York trading, the euro lost to 1.0872 dollars from 1.0979 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound decreased to 1.5387 dollars from 1.5471 dollars. The Australian dollar went down to 0.7733 dollar from 0.7827 dollar.

The dollar bought 123.05 Japanese yen, higher than 121.5 yen of the previous session. The greenback moved up to 0.9527 Swiss franc from 0.9453 Swiss franc, and rose to 1.2431 Canadian dollars from 1.2313 Canadian dollars. Endite