1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar falls on soft GDP report

The U.S. dollar decreased against most major currencies on Thursday as investors weighed the possibility of an interest-rate hike this year given the country's soft economic growth in the third quarter.

U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the third quarter, down from the revised 3.9 percent increase in the second quarter while missing market expectations of 1.7 percent, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

On a year-on-year basis, the economy increased 2 percent in the third quarter, which represents the slowest expansion since the first quarter of 2014.

According to the Department, the slower growth in the third quarter mainly reflected a downturn in private inventory investment and a slowdown in exports, consumptions and government spending.

The downbeat GDP data dampened market expectation for an interest-rate hike by year-end, which was ignited in the previous session by the hawkish Federal Reserve statement.

After a two-day monetary policy meeting that started Tuesday, Fed officials kept the benchmark rate unchanged, yet took the unusual step to leave the door open for a rate-hike at the next meeting in December.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was down 0.52 percent at 97.272 on Thursday in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.0980 dollars from 1.0901 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound climbed to 1.5315 dollars from 1.5251 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar declined to 0.7077 dollar from 0.7086 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 121.11 Japanese yen, lower than 121.21 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar fell to 0.9897 Swiss franc from 0.9952 Swiss franc, and it went down to 1.3158 Canadian dollars from 1.3214 Canadian dollars. Enditem