1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises on bullish housing data

The U.S. dollar climbed against most major currencies on Tuesday as new home sales data from the country came out positive, bolstering market expectation for an interest-rate hike this year.

U.S. Commerce Department reported on Tuesday that sales of new single-family houses in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000, beating market expectations. The latest figure is 2.2 percent above the revised April rate of 534,000 and is 19.5 percent above the May 2014 estimate of 457,000.

Analysts said the strong report suggested that the recovery of U.S. housing market was back on track after some missteps in the first quarter, which encouraged the Federal Reserve to stay on course to raise interest rates later this year.

Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell said on Tuesday that he expected the central bank to raise interest rates in September, with a second increase coming in December.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 1.21 percent at 95.468 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro dropped to 1.1169 dollars from 1.1339 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound fell to 1.5715 dollars from 1.5829 dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar went up to 0.7729 dollars from 0.7727 dollars.

The U.S. dollar bought 123.96 Japanese yen, higher than 123.39 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar inched up to 0.9352 Swiss francs from 0.9213 Swiss francs, and it increased to 1.2336 Canadian dollars from 1.2317 Canadian dollars. Endite