The dollar rose against the euro when Greece’s seven-year notes fell as Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government struggled to fund itself. On the other hand, sterling rose when the office of national statistics said that the UK economy expanded at 0.4 percent in fourth quarter. Sacha Tihanyi, a currency strategist in Toronto at Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third-largest bank said: “The euro is obviously still suffering. Canada is an excellent country from the sovereign-risk perspective, and Australia is very good as well.”
Peter Frank, a strategist at Societe Generale SA in London said: “The market is fairly stable as we see strength in the commodity bloc. Global risk conditions are quite buoyant.”
Vassili Serebriakov, a currency strategist at Wells Fargo & Co. in New York said: "The sterling is probably the story just on the back of better-than-expected economic data."
The dollar gained 0.5 percent to $1.3414 per euro . It rose 0.3 percent to 92.76 yen. The euro fell 0.2 percent to 124.44 yen. The pound strengthened 0.5 percent to $1.5069.