The dollar held near a six-week high against the euro on Thursday after Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke suggested the central bank would keep raising interest rates to combat inflation, bolstering the U.S. currency's rate advantage. In his debut before Congress as Fed chairman, Bernanke said the U.S. economy was running near capacity but warned that it faced heightened inflation if there was not a proper monetary policy response. "He was bullish, as the market expected," said the chief trader at a European investment bank in Tokyo, adding that many investors were relieved that Fed policy won't deviate much from when Alan Greenspan was running the show -- at least not for now. "Bernanke's not trying to do it his own way yet. He still wants to maintain what had been going on for the past years with Greenspan." By 0605 GMT, the euro was down slightly at $1.1880 , in sight of the six-week low of $1.1859 hit on electronic trading platform EBS on Tuesday. The dollar edged down to 117.75 yen after rising 0.3 percent in the previous session. The single European currency was also down a tad at 139.90 yen . A Reuters poll taken after Bernanke's testimony showed little change in market expectations for rates to climb, with 18 of 20 U.S. primary dealers seeing a rise to 4.75 percent from the current 4.5 percent at the Fed's next policy meeting in March. But only nine saw rates rising to 5 percent in May, though that trails expectations in the futures markets for further tightening. Investors will closely watch U.S. data due at 1330 GMT for housing starts in January. Worries about a sharp slowdown in the once-blistering housing market are one reason analysts believe the Fed could soon stop raising rates. Starts are seen picking up to a 2.000 million annual rate in January from 1.933 million in December.