The dollar traded within a narrow range Monday as investors waited to hear from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the European Central Bank.
At midday in New York, the euro was nearly unchanged at $1.4238 from $1.4236 late Friday, while the dollar fell to 83.86 Japanese yen from 84.09 yen. The British pound gained to $1.6138 from $1.6121.
Bernanke is scheduled to give a speech Monday night about the health of financial markets. The Federal Reserve is releasing minutes Tuesday from its meeting last month that could shed more light on its policy stance, which affects the value of the dollar. The ECB is meeting Thursday and is expected to lift its key interest rate from 1 percent to 1.25 percent because of the threat of inflation from climbing energy and food prices.
Since early March, expectations that rates will rise soon in Europe has pushed the euro up 2.5 percent against the dollar. The euro has managed to climb despite lingering concerns about another emergency aid package being needed for Portugal and possible debt defaults by Ireland. Ireland and Greece received bailouts last year.
In the U.S., meanwhile, many economists say the Federal Reserve is not likely to bump up its key interest rate from the current range near zero until the first three months of 2012 at the earliest.
In other trading Monday, the dollar rose to 96.74 Canadian cents from 96.47 Canadian cents, but dropped to 0.9197 Swiss franc from 0.9237 Swiss franc.
