1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises ahead of Fed meeting

The U.S. dollar increased against most major currencies on Monday as investors were awaiting the closely-watched Federal Reserve meeting scheduled later this week.

Investors widely expected that the Fed would raise interest rate at its monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday for the first time in nearly a decade.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen said recently that the continuing improvement in the U.S. labor market helps strengthen confidence that inflation will move back to the objective of 2 percent over the medium term.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.10 percent at 97.663 in late trading.

The greenback was under pressure in the morning session on Monday amid market concerns caused by the recent slump in oil prices. Safe-haven currencies including Japanese yen and Swiss franc climbed against the U.S. dollar before noon but pared the gains in late trading as the oil prices rebounded.

In late New York trading, the euro increased to 1.1000 dollars from 1.0994 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound dropped to 1.5141 dollars from 1.5229 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar rose to 0.7245 dollar from 0.7191 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 120.83 Japanese yen, higher than 120.78 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar hiked to 0.9851 Swiss franc from 0.9820 Swiss franc, and it went up to 1.3736 Canadian dollars from 1.3735 Canadian dollars. Endit