Dollar Recovers From Recent Losses, Posts Gains Again Major Rivals

(RTTNews) - The U.S. dollar firmed against its major counterparts on Tuesday, after the minutes from the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting signaled interest rates will remain at a restrictive level for now.

The minutes of the October 31-November 1 meeting said participants agreed policy should remain restrictive until inflation is clearly moving down sustainably toward the Fed's 2% objective.

Following the recent series of interest rate hikes, participants also agreed to proceed carefully and take a data-dependent approach to future policy decisions.

"Participants noted that further tightening of monetary policy would be appropriate if incoming information indicated that progress toward the Committee's inflation objective was insufficient," the Fed said.

The Fed also said participants expect data arriving in coming months to help clarify the extent to which the disinflation process was continuing.

On the economic front, the National Association of Realtors released a report showing existing home sales in the U.S. tumbled by much more than expected in the month of October

NAR said existing home sales plummeted by 4.1% to an annual rate of 3.79 million in October after plunging by 2.2% to a revised rate of 3.95 million in September.

Economists had expected existing home sales to slump by 1.5% to a rate of 3.90 million from the 3.96 million originally reported for the previous month.

The dollar index, which climbed to 103.71 a few minutes before the Fed released the minutes of its latest policy meeting, dropped a bit to 103.58, but still remained above the flat line, gaining about 0.14%.

Against the Euro, the dollar firmed to 1.0914. Against Pound Sterling, the dollar was weak at 1.2538, giving up about 0.25%.

The dollar was little changed against the Japanese currency at 148.39 yen. Against the Aussie, the dollar is trading at 0.6557, and against Swiss franc, it is weak at CHF 0.8838.

The Loonie has strengthened against the dollar to C$ 1.3700, recovering from early weakness.