U.S. dollar rallies amid upbeat data

The U.S. dollar rose against most other major currencies Thursday as investors digested a batch of positive economic reports.

U.S. privately-owned housing starts in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,226,000, beating market consensus, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

This is 11.3 percent above the revised November rate of 1,102,000 and is 5.7 percent above the December 2015 rate of 1,160,000.

Meanwhile, in the week ending Jan. 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 234,000, a decrease of 15,000 from the previous week's revised level, said the U.S. Labor Department Thursday.

The 4-week moving average was 246,750, a decrease of 10,250 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since Nov. 3, 1973 when it was 244,000.

Investors also kept a close eye on the European Central Bank's (ECB) decision to keep its key interest rates unchanged.

At Thursday's meeting the Governing Council of the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00 percent, 0.25 percent and -0.40 percent respectively.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, rose 0.23 percent at 101.16 in late trading Thursday.

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.0656 dollars from 1.0662 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound climbed to 1.2335 from 1.2282 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar increased to 0.7554 dollar from 0.7533 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 114.83 Japanese yen, lower than 113.67 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar gained to 1.0075 Swiss francs from 1.0047, and it moved up to 1.3323 Canadian dollars from 1.3244 Canadian dollars. Endit