NEW YORK, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. dollar traded higher against most major currencies on Thursday as investors were sifting through a batch of economic data from the country.

In the week ending March 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 226,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's revised level, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

The 4-week moving average was 221,500, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average.

In a separate report, the department announced that U.S. import prices increased 0.4 percent in February, beating market consensus of 0.3 percent, while prices for U.S. exports rose 0.2 percent in February following a 0.8-percent advance in the previous month.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, increased 0.45 percent at 90.135 in late trading.

In late New York trading, the euro decreased to 1.2303 dollars from 1.2374 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound fell to 1.3934 dollars from 1.3972 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar was down to 0.7798 dollar from 0.7881 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 106.25 Japanese yen, lower than 106.29 Japanese yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 0.9516 Swiss franc from 0.9448 Swiss franc, and it was up to 1.3057 Canadian dollars from 1.2941 Canadian dollars. Enditem