Dollar gains vs other major currencies

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Dollar gains vs other major currencies

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The dollar rose to 78.92 yen from 78.85 yen late Thursday.

07 September,2012 11:50 am

The euro extended gains in Asia on Friday after the European Central Bank unveiled plans to buy the bonds of troubled eurozone nations in a bid to tackle the regions long-running debt crisis. The common currency bought $1.2637 and 99.73 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade, from $1.2629 and 99.60 yen late Thursday in New York.The euro, which had climbed to $1.2652, a two-month high, earlier in the US session, was trading around $1.2602 and 98.85 yen before ECB chief Mario Draghi announced the scheme. The ECBs bond-buying programme attacks the core of the European debt crisis by relieving some of the pressure on struggling European nations, said Chris Tedder, research analyst at Forex.com in Sydney.But it was not immediately clear if debt-hit nations including Italy and Spain would take advantage of the ECB offer, which is dependent on countries agreeing to a bailout and undertaking fiscal reforms.Critics led by Germany had warned that buying the debt of troubled eurozone nations would let them avoid painful austerity cuts that are crucial to repairing their fiscal health.Investors will now shift their focus to US non-farm payrolls data later in the day, with the outcome a likely indicator of whether the Federal Reserve will launch a fresh round of stimulus.The dollars gain on the yen was helped by figures on Thursday that showed US weekly jobless claims fell for the first time in a month while a better-than-expected 201,000 private-sector jobs were added to the worlds biggest economy in August. The dollar was mostly lower against other Asia-Pacific currencies.