NEW YORK, June 4: The dollar edged higher on Wednesday after a report showed more expansion than expected in the US service sector last month.

The euro slipped as low as $1.5424 against the dollar from $1.5440 before the data. Against the yen, the dollar rose to 105.33 yen from 105.10 just before.

The Institute for Supply Management’s index on non-manufacturing activity for May came in at 51.7 from 52.0 the previous month. Markets were expecting an index of 51.0.

“The numbers came out slightly better than expected,” said George Davis, chief technical strategist at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto.

“Prices paid has gone up quite a bit from 72.1 to 77 and in the context of Bernanke’s comments yesterday vis-a-vis the dollar and inflation we will see a rally in the US dollar here.”—Reuters