Dollar Moves Up

TOKYO, April 13 (Reuters) - The dollar edged up against the yen in quiet trade on Monday with many overseas players still away for the Easter holiday and others waiting until the U.S. corporate earnings season gets into full swing.

U.S. banks including Goldman Sachs (GS.N) JPMorgan (JPM.N) and Citigroup (C.N) are set to report Q1 results this week, and traders are keen to see how stock markets react to these earnings reports.

Last week, the dollar rose against the yen, buoyed by a rally in U.S. stocks after positive earnings guidance from U.S. bank Wells Fargo (WFC.N).

"If U.S. earnings results show signs that the U.S. is pulling away from the worst of the economic downturn, risk appetite is expected to grow, putting pressure on the yen," said Yoshihisa Kanzaki, currency dealer at Shinkin Central Bank.

Market watchers said the currency market has priced in positive U.S. earnings figures, so the market is more likely to react to any negative surprises.

The dollar was trading around 100.33 yen , compared with 100.22 yen in late Tokyo trading on Friday. The U.S. currency touched 101.45 yen last week, its highest in six months.

The euro was quoted at $1.3144 , down from $1.3186 on Friday when it also slipped to $1.3090, a level not seen since mid-March.

Against the yen, the euro was at 131.85 yen , down from 132.24 yen. It climbed to 137.42 yen last week, its highest point in six months.

The Australian dollar rose above 73.00 yen , the highest since October, before falling back to 72.33 yen.

Retail investors seemed to be picking up the higher yielding Aussie, with thin trade exaggerating its price swings, market watchers said.

Australia last week slashed its key cash rate by just 0.25 basis points to 3.0 percent, less than some had expected. (Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Euro Gains Ground

The Euro gained some ground after European Central Bank lowered the interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1.25 percent, most analysts expect less than the 1/2 a percentage point drop.


Interest rates in the Eurozone are three full percentage points lower than they were in October.

The pound, meanwhile, gained on the US dollar after a report from Nationwide Building Society that said the average price of a house in the UK was up 0.9 percent in March from February, the first increase in nearly a year and a half.

The average price of a house rose to £150,946 against an expected continuation of price declines.

In late morning trade, the pound traded at 91.3p to the euro while it took .4664 to buy a pound.

The higher house prices and a gain in equities markets made it look as if contractions in the UK economy could be slowing down..

The Swiss franc weakened after the Swiss National Bank said it will continue to intervene to keep the currency from gaining value and on the ECB’s smaller-than-expected rate cut.

At late morning in New York, the Swiss currency traded at SFr1.5248 to the euro while it was at SFr1.1337 to the greenback.

The yen was also weaker as risk appetite returned as equities markets saw gains, with the Japanese currency trading at ¥99.545 to the US dollar shortly before noon in New York.

This morning the dollar was gaining ground on the euro and then came to a halt
hovering around the 1.3270,which in the last 24 hours was almost 300 pip gain
against the Euro. This Euro/USD market moves on a whim and I am sure it is going to
go back the other way in just a short time. But as of 5.00 this morning the dollar is still moving up.