By Deborah Levine
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The dollar held onto strong gains Wednesday after a pair of reports showed U.S. housing starts improved and core wholesale prices remained benign last month. The dollar index (DXY 78.20, +0.70, +0.90%) , which tracks the currency against a trade-weighted basket of six major rivals, rose to 78.172, up slightly from before the data and from 77.451 in late North American trading Tuesday. Housing starts fell 4% to a 557,000 pace last month, a smaller improvement than some economists expected. Separately, the government's producer price-index rose 0.2% in December. Core prices, excluding food and energy, were flat last month. The euro fell to a five-month low versus the U.S. dollar, at $1.4141, as fears that Chinese efforts to rein in lending led investors to shun risky assets and ongoing worries about Greece's budget problems kept pressure on the single currency.
