Euro slightly up in Asia

The euro made thin gains on Wednesday, extending this week's rebound but with limited ability to rise much as caution gripped the market ahead of debt sales by highly indebted eurozone countries. Portugal is due to tap bond investors on Wednesday while Spain is looking to sell up to 3 billion euros ($3.89 billion) worth on Thursday.
The common currency ticked up 0.1 percent to $1.2983, and kept gains from a four-month trough of around $1.2860 hit on Monday. But it was off the day's high of $1.3017 marked after attempts to take out stop-loss orders said to be lurking above $1.30.
The dollar's weakness against Asian and other emerging economy currencies is indirectly helping the euro, a US bank trader said. Further resistance is seen at its December 23 low of $1.3055 and the 200-day moving average around $1.3070, and many traders see little chance of the euro rising above those levels in the near term.
In the options market, however, risk reversal spreads stood at 0.75/1.5 percent in favour of euro puts, near the lowest level in two months, meaning euro puts, which give investors protection against falls in the euro, are at their cheapest level in two months relative to euro calls. An options trader at a Japanese bank said flows related to exotic options such as no-touch options may be behind this.
Against the yen, the single European currency was flat at 108.00 yen, but well off four-month lows around 106.81 set on Monday. As the euro won a reprieve, the dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of major currencies, slipped 0.2 percent to 80.63, off a five-week high around 81.313 set on Monday.
Versus the yen, the dollar slipped a tad to 83.08 yen, though it held well above this week's low around 82.66, with gains in global stocks weighing on demand for the yen. Mounting worries that massive floods in north-east Australia could hamper growth were taking a toll on the Aussie, knocking it further from a 28-year high around $1.0250 set on December 31.