1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar falls against euro after ECB move

The U.S. dollar decreased against the euro on Thursday after the European Central Bank (ECB) expanded its stimulus plan but signaled there could be no rate-cut in the future.

The ECB decided Thursday to cut the main refinancing operations interest rate for the euro area by 5 basis points to a record low of zero percent.

The bank also expanded its asset purchase program from 60 billion euros (66.81 billion U.S. dollars) to 80 billion euros (89.08 billion dollars) per month, beginning in April.

However, ECB President Mario Draghi suggested Thursday that years of interest rate cuts may finally come to an end.

"Rates will stay low, very low, for a long period of time and well past the horizon of our purchases," Draghi said, adding that "from today's perspective and taking into account the support of our measures to growth and inflation, we don't anticipate that it will be necessary to reduce rates further."

The shared currency soared 1.8 percent against the greenback in late trading. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was down 1.04 percent at 96.159.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.1206 dollars from 1.1010 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound climbed to 1.4290 dollars from 1.4221 dollars. The Australian dollar went down to 0.7450 dollar from 0.7511 dollar.

The dollar bought 112.99 Japanese yen, lower than 113.33 yen of the previous session. The greenback decreased to 0.9821 Swiss franc from 0.9970 Swiss franc, and inched up to 1.3345 Canadian dollars from 1.3252 Canadian dollars. Endit