Intervention prospects push yen down; Euro gains capped by sovereign jitters By Deborah Levine and William L. Watts, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. dollar pared its gains versus the Japanese yen and turned back down against the euro Wednesday after the U.S. government said durable-goods orders rose by far less than analysts anticipated. The dollar had gained more against the yen amid indications that Tokyo was prepared to intervene to slow the Japanese currency's rise a day after it notched a 15-year high against the dollar and a nine-year high against the euro. The euro was also caught between Portugal's strong bond auction and Standard & Poor's downgrade of Ireland's bond rating. Versus the yen, the U.S. dollar (USDYEN 84.2800, +0.1600, +0.1902%) bought ¥84.29, up from ¥84.07 in late North American trade on Tuesday. It had been as high as ¥84.65 during the European trading session. The dollar hit an intraday low of ¥83.57 Tuesday, its lowest level versus the yen since 1995. The euro turned back up (EURUSD 1.2654, +0.0027, +0.2138%) to buy $1.2647, from $1.2634 Tuesday. The single currency hit a new all-time low versus the Swiss franc, below 1.30 francs, before trimming losses to buy CHF1.3028. The dollar index (DXY 83.23, +0.08, +0.10%) , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, slipped to 83.270 from 83.310 late Tuesday. The British pound (GBPUSD 1.5444, +0.0031, +0.2012%) turned higher after the U.S. data, up 0.3% to $1.54151. The dollar lost ground against the euro and yen after the U.S. Commerce Department said orders for durable goods came in weaker than economists expected. Read about durable-goods data. The data raise concerns that U.S. growth may not have bounced back in the third quarter as much as some may have been forecasting, said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak. "We remain of the belief that our 2% growth expectation in the third quarter has significant downside risk, and if data points continue to come in weaker than expected, the actual growth rate in the third quarter will be closer to 1% than 2%," he said. Data on July new-home sales will be released at 10 a.m. Eastern time. To intervene, or not The dollar's gain against the yen came as Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku met to talk about the economy. Noda was quoted in reports after the meeting as saying that no action on the yen was discussed, briefly sending the yen back up, but the currency later eased off its intraday high. See more on Japanese yen.

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