Early trade in New York: euro posts steep gains

The euro posted steep gains on Thursday after major central banks said they would work together to alleviate funding strains for European banks having difficulty borrowing dollars. The move, which will provide three-month dollar liquidity, was, however, unlikely to relieve all of the stresses troubling the market due to the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis, analysts said.
The European Central Bank announced the funding operations, to be undertaken in conjunction with the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, Bank of Japan and Swiss National Bank. The euro surged to session highs against the dollar at $1.39370 following the ECB news and was last at $1.38519, up 0.8 percent. Against the yen, the euro rose 0.8 percent to 106.239 yen. The dollar meanwhile jumped against the yen to hit session highs at 77.335 yen on trading platform EB.