LONDON (Reuters) - The yen rose broadly on Monday, hitting a five-month high against the dollar as investors remained risk averse ahead of upcoming U.S. corporate earnings.
An upgrade of Japan's economic assessment also helped the yen, while overall risk aversion stung currencies seen as being high-risk, including the Australian dollar, which slumped to its weakest against the yen and the dollar in roughly two months.
The euro inched up, recovering early losses following comments from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet that global economic weakness for the rest of the year would be less pronounced than in the first quarter.
Despite Trichet's comments, analysts said the bias remained tilted toward risk aversion given dwindling optimism that the global economy is improving, even as some of the biggest U.S. firms are expected to show they are recovering from the financial crisis.
"All the big banks save Citi are seen having positive earnings in the second quarter ... but at the same time, the market wants to sell risk this week," said Lauren Rosborough, senior currency strategist at Westpac in London.
The dollar fell to 91.73 yen on electronic trading platform EBS, its lowest since mid-February. By 1207 GMT (8:07 a.m. EDT), it had trimmed some losses to trade at 92.11 yen, down 0.5 percent on the day.
The euro traded 0.3 percent higher at $1.3975, after Trichet's comments initially prompted some short covering in the single European currency.
Some analysts argued his comments that the ECB's liquidity auctions were necessary to avoid a threat to systemic stability underlined weakness in the euro zone's financial situation, which was limiting euro gains.
Market participants added that options in the pair with a strike price around $1.40 were due to expire later in the day, which was also helping to limit euro gains.
Options worth around 200 million euros at $1.40 will expire, along with an equal amount at $1.4005, according to IFR.
European shares rose 0.4 percent, after spending much of the morning in negative territory.
COMMODITY FX SUFFERS
The yen gained broadly, pushing the euro down 0.3 percent to 128.61 yen, while the Australian and New Zealand dollars each fell roughly 1 percent.
The Australian dollar fell as low as 70.78 yen, according to Reuters data, its weakest since mid-May.
Analysts said the commodity-based currencies were stung by struggling oil prices. Both the Australian and New Zealand currencies each fell more than half a percent against the dollar, with the Australian currency falling to $0.7700, its weakest since late May.
Helping the yen was the Japanese government's upgrade of its economic assessment for the third straight month.
The yen brushed off Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso's announcement of a national election at the end of August, which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is seen losing.
Company earnings releases this week include those from Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) on Tuesday, as well as JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) later in the week.
Market expectations are for Goldman to post banner earnings in the second quarter, but analysts said caution about their outlooks would likely keep risk appetite limited.
"Investors will want to see that any recovery for major companies is revenue-based and not cost-cutting based," said James Hughes, analyst at CMC Markets in London. (Additional reporting by Jessica Mortimer, editing by Chris Pizzey)
