U.S. dollar drops on BOJ decision

The U.S. dollar fell against other major currencies on Thursday, as investors were surprised by the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) decision to maintain its monetary policy.

The BOJ on Thursday decided to keep its current monetary policy despite market expectations of additional easing, while again putting off the target date of achieving its 2 percent inflation goal. The U.S. dollar plunged about 3 percent against Japanese yen following the news.

On the U.S. economic front, the U.S. real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2016, worse than traders' estimates, according to the "advance" estimate released by the Commerce Department Thursday.

Meanwhile, in the week ending April 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims was 257,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week's revised level, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was down 0.67 percent at 93.759 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.1350 dollars from 1.1321 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound climbed to 1.4610 dollars from 1.4553 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar increased to 0.7638 dollar from 0.7597 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 108.10 Japanese yen, lower than 111.52 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar fell to 0.9667 Swiss franc from 0.9715 Swiss franc, and it lost to 1.2518 Canadian dollars from 1.2606 Canadian dollars. Enditem