Investing.com – The dollar eased from five-month highs against its rivals as the euro moved off its lows despite fears a likely future Italian government would seek a debt write down from European creditors.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, rose by 0.05% to 93.19.
The greenback’s earlier rise to a five-month high of 93.52 was helped by mostly upbeat economic data as industrial production and building permits topped expectations while housing starts fell short.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday U.S. homebuilding fell 3.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.287 million units in April, missing economists’ estimates for a 0.7% decline.
The report also highlighted a 1.8% rise in building permits to a rate of 1.3 47 million units, beating forecasts for a 2.3% decline.
U.S. industrial output rose 0.7% in April.
The dollar’s recent rally comes on the back of surging bond yields as traders renewed bets on four total Federal Reserve rate hikes in 2018 following relatively strong U.S. economic data in recent days.
The odds of a fourth rate hike at the Fed’s December meeting inched up to 45% from 40.8% last week, according to Investing.com’s fed rate monitor tool.
The U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield hit a fresh nearly seven-year high of 3.093% earlier in the session.
EUR/USD recovered from a steep decline to trade at $1.1805, down 0.29%, despite reports that Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and anti-immigrant League may ask the European Central Bank to forgive $294.18 billion of debt.
GBP/USD fell 0.07% to $1.3497, while USD/CAD fell 0.49% to C$1.2810.
USD/JPY fell 0.17% Y110.13 as weaker Japan GDP data supported an uptick in the yen, pressuring the pair.