1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar falls on soft housing data

The U.S. dollar dropped against most major peers on Monday as the housing data from the country came out negative.

According to the report by the National Association of Realtors on Monday, U.S. pending home sales declined at the beginning of this year following the highest average year for the index in nearly a decade.

The Pending Home Sales Index decreased 2.5 percent to 106.0 in January from an upwardly revised 108.7 in December. The latest reading was under market consensus of a 0.5-percent gain.

Meanwhile, investors were still digesting the country's economic growth data for the fourth quarter of 2015.

According to the second estimate released Friday by the Commerce Department, U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, beating the market consensus of 0.4 percent.

In the previous estimate, the increase in real GDP for the fourth quarter of 2015 was 0.7 percent.

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.0883 dollars from 1.0928 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound rose to 1.3916 dollars from 1.3861 dollars. The Australian dollar went up to 0.7140 dollars from 0.7123 dollars.

The dollar bought 112.83 Japanese yen, lower than 113.91 yen of the previous session. The dollar increased to 0.9990 Swiss francs from 0.9974 Swiss francs, and it dropped to 1.3517 Canadian dollars from 1.3522 Canadian dollars. Endit