US dollar ends week up versus euro

Story link: US dollar ends week up versus euro

The US dollar strengthened Friday as analysts cut their expectation that the Federal Reserve will send interest rates lower again in January after they judged recent economic data might not support another rate cut right away.

In early afternoon trade the greenback was trading at $1.4449 to the euro and at $2.0220 to the pound, while it took ¥113.3950 to buy a dollar.

The US currency has gained 1.5 percent on the euro this week, bringing the year’s losses for the greenback versus the shared currency to 8.6 percent.

Declines for the pound came as the move by several central banks to ease the credit crisis have not seemed to make much of an impact and after inflation in the US was up more than had been expected as consumer prices were reported to have added 0.8 percent in November.

Meanwhile, the yen was helped by a continued trend away from risk.

The yen traded at ¥163.8500 to the euro and at ¥229.2790 to the pound while it was at ¥97.8371 to the Australian dollar and at ¥98.3776 to the Swiss franc.