U.S. dollar rises against euro on policy divergence

The U.S. dollar increased against the euro on Friday as the Federal Reserve was on track to raise interest rates while its counterpart in Europe planned to unleash further stimulus.

The greenback has been firmly supported by market expectation for an interest-rate hike by year-end lately.

Earlier this week, minutes from Federal Reserve's October meeting showed that the majority of Fed officials agreed that "it may well become appropriate" to raise the benchmark rate in the next policy meeting in December.

On the other hand, European Central Bank Chief Mario Draghi said on Friday that the policy makers "will do what we must to raise inflation as quickly as possible", leaving little doubt of more stimulus in the region..

The shared-currency dropped 0.80 percent against the U.S. dollar during the session. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.62 at 99.600 in late trading, the highest level since April.

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.0649 dollars from 1.0733 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound dropped to 1.5195 dollars from 1.5291 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar hiked to 0.7236 dollar from 0.7193 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 122.88 Japanese yen, higher than 122.83 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 1.0189 Swiss franc from 1.0130 Swiss franc, and it went up to 1.3341 Canadian dollars from 1.3291 Canadian dollars. Enditem