Dollar Falls Toward Seven-Week Low Against Euro on Stock Rally

By Yasuhiko Seki and Ron Harui

July 28 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell toward its lowest level in seven weeks against the euro as Asian stocks extended a global rally, adding to evidence investors are shifting to higher-yielding assets.

The Australian dollar rose for a third day against the greenback after the Reserve Bank of Australia said the South Pacific nation’s economy may rebound faster than it forecast six months ago. The euro approached a three-week high against the yen after Deutsche Bank AG said second-quarter profit rose 68 percent, beating analysts’ estimates, on increased revenue from trading bonds and stocks.

“Rising share prices will make it easier for investors to take more risks,” said Toshiya Yamauchi, manager of the foreign-exchange margin trading department in Tokyo at Ueda Harlow Ltd. “Under such circumstances, the dollar and the yen will weaken, especially against the currencies of resource-rich nations and emerging markets.”

The dollar declined to $1.4275 per euro as of 7:05 a.m. in London from $1.4232 in New York yesterday, when it touched $1.4298, the lowest level since June 3. The U.S. currency was at 95.13 yen from 95.18 yen.

The euro rose to 135.80 yen from 135.48 yen yesterday, when it reached 136.10 yen, the strongest since July 2. The U.S. dollar fell to as low as C$1.0761 today, its weakest versus Canada’s dollar since Oct. 3.

MSCI’s Asia Pacific index of regional shares rose for an 11th day, the longest winning streak since January 2004, adding to evidence investor risk-appetite is increasing. The index climbed 0.9 percent today.

Dollar Index

The Dollar Index was near the lowest level this year before a report that economists said will show U.S. home prices fell at a slower pace in May, indicating that the American economy is recovering and demand for safe haven currencies will fall.

The S&P/Case Shiller index of 20 major metropolitan areas, scheduled for release today, will show property values fell 17.9 percent in May from a year earlier, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. The measure was down 18.1 percent in the 12 months ended April.

The Dollar Index, which the ICE uses to track the greenback against currencies including the yen, pound and Swedish krona, was at 78.476 from 78.626 yesterday, near this year’s low of 78.334 on June 2

The Australian dollar climbed after RBA Governor Glenn Stevens said it appears “that the downturn we are having may turn out not to be one of the more serious ones of the postwar era, in contrast to the experiences of so many other countries.”

Upside Risks

“We can much more easily imagine upside risks to the outlook, to balance out the downside ones, than was the case six month ago,” the Reserve Bank chief said in Sydney today.

Stevens left the benchmark lending rate at 3 percent on July 7 for a third month amid signs the lowest borrowing costs in half a century and government spending helped the nation skirt a recession.

“With Australia’s economy apparently doing well, there may be no more scope for interest-rate cuts,” said Masashi Kurabe, head of currency sales and trading in Hong Kong at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., a unit of Japan’s biggest publicly traded bank. “Higher-yielding currencies such as Australia’s dollar will likely be popular, with demand from people in countries with low yields such as Japan.”

Benchmark interest rates of 8.75 percent in Brazil and 0.25 percent in Sweden compare with 0.1 percent in Japan and as low as zero in the U.S.

The Australian dollar rose to 83.02 U.S. cents from 82.27 cents yesterday, and advanced to 78.97 yen from 78.31 yen.

Deutsche Earnings

The euro gained for a fourth day against the yen after Germany’s largest bank said in a statement today net income rose to 1.09 billion euros ($1.55 billion), or 1.64 euros a share, from 649 million euros, or 1.27 euros, a year earlier. Deutsche Bank’s earnings exceeded the 944 million-euro median estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

“The bank’s results were better than expected,” said Lee Wai Tuck, a currency strategist at Forecast Pte in Singapore. “The latest upmove in the euro could be due to this.”

Deutsche Bank’s Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann said the banking industry and financial markets stabilized in the quarter, propelling a fourfold gain in income from debt sales and an improvement in equity trading.

Losses in the yen against the dollar were tempered on speculation Japanese exporters are taking advantage of the currency’s drop in the past week to repatriate earnings from overseas assets before the month-end.

Japanese Exporters

“Exporters are prone to buy the yen, given that the end of the month is near,” said Yuji Saito, head of the foreign- exchange group in Tokyo at Societe Generale, France’s third- largest bank.

Japanese companies forecast the yen would average 94.85 per dollar in the 12 months to March 2010, according to the Bank of Japan’s quarterly Tankan survey released July 1.

Adding to pressure on the dollar, China’s Assistant Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said on the first day of bilateral talks with U.S. officials that his government remains “concerned” about the value of its U.S. assets.

Zhu’s remarks come after repeated public assurances by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that the U.S. is committed to reining in a record budget deficit once an economic recovery is secured. China is the biggest foreign investor in U.S. government debt, and any decline in demand could push up borrowing costs.

“China has massive holdings of Treasuries, so it is obviously worried,” said Masanobu Ishikawa, general manager of foreign exchange at Tokyo Forex & Ueda Harlow Ltd., Japan’s largest currency broker. “Any diversification away from the dollar could be gradual, and the greenback may weaken a bit.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Yasuhiko Seki in Tokyo at yseki5@bloomberg.net; Ron Harui in Singapore at rharui@bloomberg.net.