U.S. dollar declines ahead of ECB meeting

The U.S. dollar slipped against the euro on Wednesday before the closely-watched European Central Bank (ECB) meeting due later this week.

The euro rose 0.35 percent against the dollar during the session, as investors expected to see signals of when the ECB may begin paring bond purchases under its quantitative easing program in Thursday's meeting.

The shared currency slumped sharply on Monday after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's loss in Sunday's constitutional reform referendum. It then rebounded over 1 percent against the greenback as the previous euro weakness was seen as overreacted.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major peers, was down 0.21 percent at 100.280 in late trading.

With no major data coming out on Wednesday, investors were also focused on the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting next week. The U.S. central bank is widely expected to raise interest rate for the first time this year during the meeting, which will continue to boost the dollar in the short term, according to analysts.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.0752 dollars from 1.0715 dollars, and the British pound slipped to 1.2615 dollars from 1.2680 dollars. The Australian dollar increased to 0.7476 dollars from 0.7457 dollars.

The dollar bought 113.95 Japanese yen, lower than 114.00 yen in the previous session. The dollar inched down to 1.0075 Swiss francs from 1.0107 Swiss francs, and it fell to 1.3234 Canadian dollars from 1.3285 Canadian dollars. Enditem