1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar rises on Fed officials' remarks

The U.S. dollar increased against other major currencies Monday after several Federal Reserve officials indicated that the central bank may raise interest rate as early as April.

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said Monday that "there is sufficient momentum evidenced by the economic data to justify a further step at one of the coming meetings, possibly as early as the meeting scheduled for end of April."

His words were echoed by San Francisco Fed chief John Williams.

"All else equal, assuming everything else is basically the same and the data flow continues the way I hope and expect, then April or June would definitely be potential times to have an increase in interest rates," said Williams Monday.

The greenback soared against other peers after the hawkish comments. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was up 0.24 percent at 95.310 in late trading.

On the U.S. economic front, total existing-home sales dropped 7.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.08 million units in February from 5.47 million in January, according to the National Association of Realtors Monday.

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.1248 U.S. dollars from 1.1270 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound dropped to 1.4396 U.S. dollars from 1.4480 dollars. The Australian dollar went down to 0.7595 U.S. dollar from 0.7602 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 111.86 Japanese yen, higher than 111.57 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar increased to 0.9697 Swiss franc from 0.9692 Swiss franc and inched up to 1.3067 Canadian dollars from 1.3020 Canadian dollars. Endit