The euro rose for a fifth straight session against the dollar on Friday, bolstered by speculation that the European Central Bank may lend to weak eurozone countries through the International Monetary Fund. The drop in US unemployment rate to 8.6 percent last month also stoked the market's appetite for risk, even though the headline figure of 120,000 new jobs created was well short of the whisper number of 200,000 touted just before the release of the report.
In early New York trading, the euro was last up 0.3 percent at $1.35024. It hit a high $1.35505 on electronic trading platform EBS immediately after the US non-farm payrolls data, currency's highest since November 22. In other currencies, the dollar was down 0.2 percent against a currency basket at 78.122. Against the yen, the dollar edged up 0.2 percent to 77.870 yen.