BLOOMBERG

Dollar Climbs on Speculation Fed to Halt Cuts, Losses Overdone
May 12 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar rose against the yen on speculated the Federal Reserve won't cut interest rates next month.
The U.S. is not going to have as deep a downturn as everyone initially portrayed.''
Fed Rate Outlook
``It's doubtful that the Fed can afford to cut more,'' said Benedikt Germanier, an analyst at UBS AG in Stamford, Connecticut, in an interview on Bloomberg Television. ``We are short on the euro-dollar. Our three-month forecast is $1.47.''
Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said in a speech today in Illinois that the central bank's current interest-rate stance is ``appropriate.''
The Dollar Index traded on ICE futures in New York, which tracks the dollar against currencies of six trading partners, rose to 73.214 today, from 73.050 on May 9. It dropped to a record of 70.698 on March 17. The dollar strengthened 0.6 percent to 1.0477 versus the Swiss franc.
The U.S. currency will increase to $1.50 per euro and trade at 102 yen by Dec. 31, according to the median forecast of 40 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
A Commerce Department report tomorrow will probably show U.S. retail sales fell 0.2 percent in April, following a 0.2 percent gain the prior month, according to the median forecast of 65 economists in a separate Bloomberg survey.
The dollar climbed 0.8 percent to 103.66 yen at 11:01 a.m. in New York, from 102.87 on May 9. It was the biggest gain since May 2. The euro increased 0.9 percent to 160.68 yen, from 159.21 yen, the largest one-day advance since April 16. The dollar traded at $1.5496 per euro, compared with $1.5482.
Traders in the futures market have turned bullish on the dollar versus the euro for the first time since December 2005. The difference in the number of wagers by hedge funds and other large speculators on an advance in the greenback versus the euro, known as net longs, was 21,315 on April 29, figures from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington show. There were net-short positions in each of the previous 123 weeks. Net longs were trimmed to 12,512 on May 6.