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By Bloomberg

The dollar climbed against most of its emerging-market peers on speculation the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting will signal a bias toward raising interest rates.

After its January gathering, the central bank reiterated the previous month’s stance that it would be “patient” in deciding when to start tightening policy, even as it noted “strong” gains in employment. Among emerging markets, Malaysia’s ringgit fell the most in almost a month while Indonesia’s rupiah weakened after its central bank unexpectedly cut rates on Tuesday.

“Money’s flowing out of emerging markets as yields in the U.S. are heading higher and the growth outlook is attractive,” said Peter Rosenstreich, head of market strategy at Swissquote Bank SA in Gland, Switzerland. “It’s very possible the market will get a more hawkish tone from the Fed minutes today, that the economy is growing at a good pace and jobs creation is leading the expansion.”

The dollar strengthened versus all but four of 24 developing-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg before the release of the Fed minutes at 2 p.m. in Washington.

It appreciated 0.3 percent to $1.1372 per euro as of 8:22 a.m. in New York, after falling for the past three weeks. Greece was preparing to request a six-month loan extension tomorrow, said a government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity says, after debt talks broke down on Monday.

The U.S. currency was little changed at 119.32 yen, having risen 0.7 percent Tuesday. Malaysia’s ringgit fell 1 percent to 3.63 per dollar and the rupiah dropped 0.9 percent to 12,870. Higher U.S. rates may attract investment away from developing nations to the world’s largest economy, which is seen by money managers as a safer place to park their cash.

Using Capacity

The dollar was also supported before a report that economists forecast will show U.S. capacity utilization increased in January. That’s seen as a positive sign for business investment.

The greenback gained 14.9 percent in the past six months against a basket of developed-nation peers tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes, the biggest advance in the group. The euro dropped 3.9 percent and the yen fell 2.9 percent.

The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, based on personal consumption expenditures, rose 0.7 percent in December from a year earlier and hasn’t been above the central bank’s 2 percent target since March 2012. Even so, several Fed officials have said the U.S. central bank’s first interest-rate increase in almost a decade may come as soon as June.

The median forecast of analysts in a Bloomberg survey suggests the Fed will raise borrowing costs in the third quarter of this year.

“Perhaps only a negative shock from Greece could materially delay a Fed rate increase, and even that would likely result in the dollar strengthening versus the euro,” said Lee Hardman, a foreign-exchange strategist at Bank of Tokyo- Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in London.