LONDON: The dollar rose to a four-month high against a basket of currencies on Thursday as worries about the possibility that Greece could exit the euro pushed investors towards the perceived safety of the US currency. The dollar index rose to 81.579, its strongest since mid-January. The gains came as the euro fell to $1.26867 on EBS trading platform, only just above a four-month low of $1.2681. Sterling also lost nearly half a percent on the day to hit a one-month low of $1.5840. Copyright Reuters, 2012 ...

LONDON: Sterling rose to a 3-1/2 year high against the euro on Tuesday on worries about political instability in Greece, though investors were also wary of downbeat forecasts in the Bank of England's pending inflation report, checking its gains. Investors have been piling to sterling as the euro crisis has stepped up a gear. "People aren't buying sterling because they think UK growth is great. They're buying sterling because it's not the euro," said Adrian Schmidt, currency strategist at Lloyds.  Analysts said the pound's ascent could be halted temporarily if the central bank reacts to the recession in the UK economy by cutting its gross domestic product forecasts and hinting at the possibility of more easing. But this was not expected to prevent sterling from pushing higher in the coming weeks as market players continue to buy the UK currency as a safer alternative to the euro. The latter hit a low of 79.60 pence, ...

ISTANBUL: The Turkish lira weakened to a seven-week low versus the dollar on Tuesday, dragged down by central bank cheap repo funding and global worries about Greece, while bond yields rose due to the lira's weakness. The central bank injected 2 billion lira into the markets through a cheap repo auction at a fixed rate of 5.75 percent. By 1458 GMT, the lira eased to 1.8142 against the dollar, after touching a seven-week low of 1.8198, compared with 1.8082 in late trade on Monday. Against its euro-dollar basket, the lira traded at 2.0653, after touching 2.0730, weakening from 2.0656 on Monday. "The cheap funding of the central bank affected the lira negatively as it decreased the average funding costs. Global worries also contributed to the lira's fall. Under these global conditions, the central bank may restart holding intraday repo auctions tomorrow," said Tufan Comert, a strategist at Garanti Securities. The central bank surprised markets on ...