The dollar rose against the euro but fell against the pound on Monday amid the latest U.S. construction spending report and the tax cut plan of President-elect Barack Obama.
Obama met with top lawmakers Monday to push for quick action on a broad economic stimulus package. The proposal includes tax cuts of up to 300 billion dollars for individuals and businesses. The total value of the tax cuts would be significantly higher than had been signaled earlier.
Obama predicted that lawmakers would approve hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending and tax cuts within two weeks of his taking office on Jan. 20.
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on Monday that construction spending during November was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,078.4 billion dollars, 0.6 percent below the revised October estimate. It was smaller than a 1.3 percent loss expected by analysts.
In the private sector, residential construction fell 4.2 percent in November, indicating that the real estate market was stuck in a deep recession. Investors, however, were encouraged by a surprise jump of 0.7 percent in nonresidential construction.
The euro was hurt as several major banks, including J.P. Morgan,UBS and Deutsche Bank, may be facing legal action brought by Italian authorities over deals they struck to manage bond investments.
The euro bought 1.3602 dollars in late New York trading compared with 1.3854 dollars it bought late Friday. The pound rose to 1.4723 dollars from 1.4471 dollars.
The dollar fell to 1.1893 Canadian dollars from 1.2141 Canadian dollars, and rose to 93.21 Japanese yen from 92.17 Japanese yen. It rose to 1.1084 Swiss francs from 1.0793.
Source:Xinhua
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