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FOREX-Dollar up; Bank of America earnings shifts outlook

Published 10/16/2009, 09:50 AM
Updated 10/16/2009, 09:54 AM
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* Dollar up from 14-mth lows; no reaction to TIC data

* Yen slides broadly on yield spreads; 3-wk low vs dlr

* Euro struggles at $1.50

(Recasts, updates prices, adds detail, adds comment, adds byline)

By Nick Olivari

NEW YORK, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The dollar rallied on Friday after disappointing Bank of America earnings changed risk tolerance and sparked safe-haven buying against currencies that had touched multimonth highs against the greenback.

The dollar's broad recovery, though modest, was enough to take it further away from the psychologically key $1.50 level against the euro and further above the 90.00 yen mark.

Bank of America Corp posted a quarterly loss of $1 billion on consumer credit woes, disappointing markets after more upbeat bank earnings results earlier in the week.

The dollar has traded inversely to stocks recently as the huge supply of dollars around the world and expectations of prolonged low U.S. interest rates fueled demand for other currencies and assets.

"The (FX) market is going to be focused on Bank of America and see if the Dow (Jones industrial average) closes down," said Greg Salvaggio, vice president of trading at Tempus Consulting in Washington. "The dollar is at a precarious level and we're watching the $1.50 (euro/dollar) bellwether level.

The dollar hit a 14-month low against the euro Thursday and matched those troughs earlier on Friday. The greenback also printed a fresh 14-month high against the Australian dollar Friday.

But the BofA results prompted traders to rethink positions ahead of the weekend.

In New York on Friday morning, the dollar index, a measure of its value against six major trading partner currencies, was up 0.3 percent at 75.72.

The dollar added 0.7 percent against the yen at 91.18 yen, just shy of a three-week high of about 91.33 yen touched earlier on Friday.

The euro fell 0.5 percent to $1.4875, almost a full cent down from the peaked touched earlier which was the highest since August last year.

YEN WEAKNESS WIDELY SPREAD

The Australian dollar was down 0.4 percent at $0.9172, having earlier hit a 14-month high.

Sentiment toward the U.S. currency remains broadly negative, however, and is not far from 2009 lows against the euro and higher-yielding currencies, such as the Australian and New Zealand dollars.

Analysts said the dollar's rise on Friday did not reflect any change in this broad scenario, but said investors were wary that currencies such as the euro and the Australian dollar may have limited scope for further gains.

The euro, in particular, faced stiff resistance before the key $1.50 level.

The yen bore the brunt of the dollar's recovery on Friday, and also slid against other currencies, as Japanese investors sought out higher returns from foreign fixed income markets.

There was no reaction to the U.S. Treasury Department capital flows data.

Net overall capital inflows into the United States rebounded to $10.2 billion in August from a revised outflow of $107.7 billion the previous month, the government said on Friday.

"It's not too exciting," said Amelia Bourdeau, senior currency strategist at UBS in Stamford Connecticut. "I just think the TICs data is lagging, so there was very little reaction."

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