Investing.com - The greenback rose Tuesday, nearing three-week highs after new home sales rose unexpectedly.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major currencies, gained 0.44% at 97.377 as of 10:21 AM ET (14:21 GMT).
New home sales rose 4.5% to 692,000 in March. Data on Monday showed that U.S. existing home sales declined in March as investors look for clues on the state of the economy ahead of Friday’s gross domestic product report.
Market volumes remained sluggish as financial markets opened in Europe after the Easter holiday.
“We are in a very range-bound market with the broader picture being more positive for the dollar relative to the euro after the weak eurozone PMI manufacturing data last week,” said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of FX strategy at Commerzbank (DE:CBKG).
EUR/USD was down 0.4% to 1.1210, while sterling inched down, with GBP/USD falling 0.2% to 1.2956.
The dollar was mostly flat against the safe-haven yen, with USD/JPY at 111.91. Elsewhere, USD/CAD jumped 0.5% to 1.3404.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.