Investing.com - The euro held steady to higher against the dollar on Wednesday as investors remained in standby mode ahead of the release of The Federal Reserve's October policy meeting minutes later in the session.
In U.S. trading, EUR/USD was up 0.12% at 1.2548, up from a session low of 1.2512 and off a high of 1.2570.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.2441, Tuesday's low, and resistance at 1.2578, Monday' high.
The euro inched up against the dollar in steady trading as investors remains camped on the sidelines ahead of the release of the Fed minutes, which were expected to highlight the growing monetary policy divergence between the U.S. central bank and its peers in Japan and Europe.
The euro continued to see residual demand from Tuesday's ZEW Centre for Economic Research report revealing that its German economic sentiment index rose by 15.1 points to a four-month high of 11.5 this month from October’s reading of -3.6.
Analysts had expected the index to improve by 4.5 points to 0.9 in November.
In addition, the index of euro zone economic sentiment increased to 11.0 in October from 4.1 in September, above expectations for an increase to 4.3, and the better-than-expected data gave the euro a shot in the arm.
Elsewhere in the U.S. on Wednesday, the U.S. Commerce Department reported earlier that the number of building permits issued last month increased by 4.8% to 1.080 million units from September's revised total of 1.031 million.
Analysts expected building permits to rise by 0.9% to 1.040 million units in October.
The report also showed that U.S. housing starts fell by 2.8% last month to hit 1.009 million units from September’s total of 1.038 million units, compared to expectations for a drop to 1.025 million.
Elsewhere, the euro was down against the pound, with EUR/GBP down 0.13% at 0.8006, and up against the yen, with EUR/JPY up 0.84% at 147.68.
On Thursday, the euro zone is to publish preliminary data on private-sector activity, while Germany and France are to also to publish data on private-sector growth.
The U.S. is to release data on initial jobless claims, consumer prices, existing homes sales and manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region.