Dollar falls on Wall Street, commodity slump

New York

THE US dollar fell on Friday against a basket of currencies as a sell-off on Wall Street and slumping commodity prices overshadowed solid data on US retail sales and consumer sentiment which may encourage the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates this week.

The greenback initially rose on a November rise in retail sales before turning negative on the view that the modest growth in stores spending was not strong enough to support further monetary tightening beyond this week.