1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises despite soft data

The U.S. dollar increased against most major currencies on Friday despite the overall soft economic data from the country.

The U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand decreased 0.4 percent in October, seasonally adjusted, missing market consensus of a 0.2-percent gain, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for October increased 0.1 percent from the previous month to 447.3 billion U.S. dollars, also below market expectations.

However, the negative data failed to dampen market speculation for a year-end rate hike. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.36 percent at 99.001 in late trading.

The U.S. dollar has been firmly supported since a robust nonfarm payroll report released last week spurred investors' expectation for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in its next policy meeting in December.

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.0738 dollars from 1.0792 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound increased to 1.5227 dollars from 1.5223 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar climbed to 0.7129 dollar from 0.7125 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 122.72 Japanese yen, higher than 122.66 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 1.0073 Swiss franc from 1.0012 Swiss franc, and it went up to 1.3312 Canadian dollars from 1.3278 Canadian dollars. Endit