U.S. dollar climbs on Yellen's remarks, data

The U.S. dollar ended higher against most major currencies on Friday as investors were still digesting the Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's remarks and a batch of economic data earlier this week.

In her testimony before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, Yellen gave an upbeat assessment of the economy, saying that the economy has continued to make progress toward the maximum employment and price stability objectives. She also implied a faster pace of interest rate hikes in the future.

Besides Yellen's relatively hawkish comments, the greenback was also supported by a series of upbeat U.S. economic data.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all urban consumers increased 0.6 percent in January, beating market consensus of 0.3 percent. Meanwhile, U.S. retail and food services sales for January came in at 472.1 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 0.4 percent from the previous month and above market estimates.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.44 percent at 100.880 in late trading on Friday.

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.0612 dollars from 1.0669 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound declined to 1.2429 dollars from 1.2490 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar dropped to 0.7663 U.S. dollar from 0.7695 U.S. dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 112.88 Japanese yen, lower than 113.23 yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 1.0026 Swiss francs from 0.9978 Swiss francs, and it edged up to 1.3103 Canadian dollars from 1.3063 Canadian dollars. Enditem