1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar slips on Fed minutes, mixed data

The U.S. dollar dropped against most major currencies Thursday as investors were digesting the dovish Federal Reserve minutes as well as the country's mixed economic data.

According to the minutes released Wednesday for the U.S. central bank's July meeting, most participants "judged that the conditions for policy firming had not yet been achieved, but they noted that conditions were approaching that point."

Investors interpreted this as the Fed backing off from a September-hike, which put the greenback under pressure.

The mixed data also weighed on the market sentiment. In the week ending Aug. 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims increased 4,000 from the previous week's revised level to 277,000, exceeding market consensus of 270,000, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.

U.S. total existing-home sales increased 2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.59 million in July from 5.48 million in June, beating market estimates, said the National Association of Realtors Thursday.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was down 0.37 percent at 95.998 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.1193 dollars from 1.1113 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound fell to 1.5672 dollars from 1.5681 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar inched down to 0.7337 dollar from 0.7356 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 123.48 Japanese yen, lower than 123.86 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar dived to 0.9619 Swiss franc from 0.9655 Swiss franc and dropped to 1.3097 Canadian dollars from 1.3107 Canadian dollars. Enditem