The dollar turned higher Tuesday as attention shifted back toward whether and when Greece will get its next installment of bailout funds.
The euro briefly gained in early U.S. trading after Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker said chances are good that European officials and Athens will come to a solution this evening.
A little later, Olli Rehn, the European Union’s economics commissioner, suggested the meeting might not provide a definitive answer to Greece’s debt problems.
The euro only briefly fell after Moody’s Investors Service stripped France of its triple-A credit rating.
The ICE dollar index , which measures the greenback’s performance against a basket of six major currencies, rose to 81.889 from 80.854 late Monday.
The index’s gains stemmed from weakness in the Japanese yen, after expectations of new leadership for the country are a ”game changer” for the currency, one analyst said.
The euro lately traded at $1.2721, little changed from $1.2816 Monday.
Versus the Japanese yen , the shared currency rose to ¥104.72 from ¥104.17.
Euro-zone finance ministers are expected to discuss, among other issues, a contentious proposal to extend the date for Greece to meet a targeted reduction in its debt.
“Once an agreement has been brokered—assuming there is also International Monetary Fund acquiescence—then we would expect the Eurogroup to approve disbursement of the next tranche of aid [to Greece],” said Sue Trinh, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets.
What remains unclear is whether euro-zone finance ministers will be able to reach a compromise on measures needed for Greece to be able to service its debt over the long term.
“There seems to be growing consensus among investors that there will be a compromise on how to plug the new funding hole that opened up after Greece managed to delay meeting its fiscal targets by two years,” strategists at Citi said. “With euro-zone officials resisting calls for restructuring, we think that Greek debt sustainability will remain an issue and could limit the positive impact on the single currency in the immediate aftermath of the meeting.”
France downgraded
As for France’s rating, “Moody’s decision to downgrade France’s credit rating to Aa1 from Aaa comes after a widespread press discussion of France’s loss of competitiveness relative to Germany,” said Kit Juckes, head of foreign exchange at Société Générale.
The move also shows that the two largest economies in the common currency bloc— Germany, followed by France—aren’t immune to stresses in the region, said Kathy Lien, strategist at BK Asset Management in New York.
Moody’s assessment that France’s economic growth assumptions of 0.8% in 2013 and 2% in 2014 were overly optimistic was “really disconcerting,” Lien said, “considering that 0.8% is extremely anemic growth.”
Bank of Japan
Meanwhile, the yen eventually lost ground after the Bank of Japan left its policy interest rate and the size of its asset-purchase program unchanged, as had been widely expected. The central bank eased at its last two meetings.
The focus now is that a change in political leadership expected to come about as a result of elections scheduled from December would add to pressure on the Bank of Japan to become even more accommodative.
“We cannot see why the BoJ would not be prompted into further easing post election and see what is happening in Japan as a real game changer for the yen,” said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak.
The U.S. dollar rose to its highest level since April: ¥81.69, up from ¥81.38 Monday.
Barclays expected the dollar to rise to ¥86 in the next year, which would be its strongest since 2010.
Also Tuesday, the British pound changed hands at $1.5927, up slightly from $1.5911, while the Australian dollar bought $1.0389, down from $1.0411.
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