* Investors eager to cover dlr-short positions
* Euro falls through $1.4500 barrier, hits stops beneath
* Fed updates economic view, supporting dollar
* Dlr downtrend in question -traders
By Satomi Noguchi
TOKYO, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The dollar marched broadly higher on Thursday, hitting a three-month peak on the euro as investors unwound short greenback positions before year-end after a more upbeat tone from the Federal Reserve supported its recent rebound.
The euro's slide against the dollar picked up pace after it broke below strong support at $1.4500 and hit stop-losses, prompting more liquidation of long-euro positions.
The Australian dollar fell more than 1 percent to hit its lowest in more than two months as more Aussie-long liquidation emerged after a break below support at $0.8900.
Traders said a statement by the Federal Reserve sounded a bit more optimistic about the U.S. labour market and helped the U.S. dollar.
Although the U.S. central bank repeated a vow to keep interest rates near zero for "an extended period", market players said the Fed's statement did not stop the dollar-buying that began earlier this month.
"I thought that the dollar rebound might end as the Fed concluded its policy meeting, but actually what we are seeing is more dollar buying," said a trader for a Japanese trust bank.
"Dollar buying interest is especially strong against the euro and the Aussie. This move suggests to me that the dollar looks like it has started another bull run before year-end," the trader said.
The euro fell more than 1 percent from late New York trade to $1.4369 on trading platform EBS, its lowest since early September, before trading at $1.4390, down 0.9 percent on the day.
Traders said volume was not bad but liquidity was poor ahead of the year end, making price movements choppy.
With bonuses often already decided by now, dealers tend to be unwilling to take risks by holding positions to try to make money and instead want to cover client flows and execute orders as quickly as possible.
Sentiment towards the euro remained sour after Standard & Poor's cut Greece's credit ratings by one notch on Wednesday following a downgrade by Fitch Ratings last week.
The dollar index, a gauge of the greenback's performance against six other major currencies, rose as high as 77.609, its highest since early September.
Some market players grew confident in the dollar as charts suggest that there is more room for the greenback to recover from a broad slide which began in March.
But others blamed the dollar's rebound this month more on year-end demand and stretched dollar-short positions that needed to be unwound.
"There is an impression that the market for the weak dollar is coming to an end, especially after seeing a raft of better-than-expected economic data," said Shuichi Kanehira, head of forex spot trading at Mizuho Corporate Bank.
"But it is probably too early to say the U.S. economy is on a path towards stable recovery, and I see dollar-selling remaining a dominant play into the first half of next year," Kanehira said.
The dollar rose as high as 90.27 yen on EBS before trading at 90.17 yen, up 0.4 percent on the day. It rose towards a one-month high of 90.78 yen touched earlier this month, but offers from Japanese exporters slowed its gains versus the yen, traders said. (Additional reporting by Charlotte Cooper; Editing by Joseph Radford)