Dollar, U.S. stocks inch higher before Fed

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar edged up against the euro on Wednesday as investor focus turned toward the Federal Reserve, which delivers a post-meeting statement later in the day, while U.S. stocks climbed after strong earnings from Apple.

Worries that Greece's new government is heading for clashes with the rest of the euro zone over its debts weighed on European equities, while shares of Apple, which jumped 7.7 percent, boosted U.S. stocks.

Apple grabbed headlines after it late on Tuesday reported the biggest quarterly profits in corporate history. Boeing also jumped 6.2 percent after the release of its results.

Investor skepticism is growing that the Fed will raise U.S. interest rates by mid-year, as had been expected. Other major central banks are easing aggressively, while a strong dollar and slumping oil prices are driving down inflation and hurting profits for some U.S. multinationals.

After the Fed's first two-day meeting of 2015, policymakers are likely to restate their "patient" approach to raising rates while voicing faith that the U.S. economy will continue improving.

"People will be looking at the 'patient' language. I can't imagine it will be changed," said Ian Lyngen, senior government bond strategist at CRT in Stamford, Connecticut.

MSCI's global share index was off 0.1 percent while an index of European shares ended down 0.1 percent.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 51.43 points, or 0.30 percent, at 17,438.64. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 2.75 points, or 0.14 percent, at 2,032.30. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 24.83 points, or 0.53 percent, at 4,706.33.

The euro fell 0.40 percent to $1.1325 on the EBS trading platform. The dollar rose 0.14 percent to 0.90385 Swiss franc.

"The bottom line is that for the dollar to resume its upside it needs to take a break. The U.S. stock market, which has been supporting the dollar rally, is starting to struggle," said David Woo, head of global rates and currency research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York.

Prices on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes were up 10/32 to yield 1.7888 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. Shorter maturities were little changed.

The Singapore dollar skidded to its weakest in nearly 4-1/2 years after the country's central bank eased monetary policy unexpectedly, its first unscheduled change in over a decade, ahead of a planned April meeting.

Singapore's central bank joins a growing list of counterparts, from Denmark and Canada to Turkey and India, which have made surprise moves in what is looking increasingly like a global currency war.

Oil prices slipped after news U.S. stockpiles surged by nearly 13 million barrels last week. Brent crude oil fell 78 cents to $48.82 a barrel and U.S. crude futures were down $1.36 at $44.87.

Gold eased as the dollar steadied. Spot gold was down 0.4 percent at $1,287.20 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London and Michael Connor in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish and Dan Grebler)