Dollar rises against euro ahead of ECB meeting

 The U.S. dollar advanced against most major currencies Wednesday and it rose versus the euro as investors keep an eye on the European Central Bank (ECB)'s monetary policy meeting.
As ECB policymakers will meet on Thursday to discuss the monetary policy, market analysts expect the ECB to cut interest rates further or introduce some sort of stimulative quantitative easing to fight deflation in Europe, which weighed on the euro.
ECB President Mario Draghi has said recently the euro's strength is hurting the central bank's effort to boost inflation. Data from Eurostat, the statistics office of the European Union, Tuesday showed eurozone inflation fell to 0.5 percent in May from 0.7 percent in April, far below the ECB's 2 percent target.
U.S. economic data released on Wednesday were mixed. U.S. private sector employment increased by 179,000 jobs in May, according to a report released Wednesday by private payroll processor ADP. The fresh data fell short of analysts' expectations of a gain of 210,000.
Investors are still awaiting the Labor Department's non-farm payroll report for May due out Friday to get more clues about the improvement in the labor market.
Meanwhile, the ISM's non-manufacturing index registered 56.3 in May up from 55.2 in April, marking the highest reading for the index since August 2013 and topping market forecast.
Other data showed that U.S. trade gap widened in April. The country's international trade deficit in goods and services increased to 47.2 billion U.S. dollars in April from the upwardly revised 44.2 billion dollars in March, as imports increased while exports slipped.
In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.3599 dollars from 1.3623 dollars of the previous session, and the British pound decreased to 1.6744 dollars to 1.6746 dollars. The Australian dollar climbed to 0.9277 dollars from 0.9257 dollars.
The dollar bought 102.71 Japanese yen, higher than 102.52 yen of the previous session. The dollar went up to 0.8971 Swiss francs from 0.8968 Swiss francs, and it moved up to 1.0935 Canadian dollars from 1.0912 Canadian dollars.