By Deborah Levine & William L. Watts, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The dollar benefited from positive U.S. data on home sales and business orders on Friday, rising versus the Japanese yen and British pound. But the greenback's gains were limited as the euro rebounded modestly from an 11-month low as Greece formally requested financial aid from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. The dollar index (DXY 81.44, -0.12, -0.15%) , which measures the U.S. unit against a trade-weighted basket of six other currencies, traded at 81.675, up slightly from late Thursday. Positive economic data tends to make a currency more attractive to investors in the hopes that interest rates in the country will rise. The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise interest rates before the European Central Bank or Bank of Japan, even if not for many months. The euro traded at $1.3326 versus the U.S. dollar (CUR_EURUSD 1.3358, +0.0070, +0.5268%) , down from around $1.3313 in North American trade late Thursday but up from a low of $1.3204 notched in Asian activity, which marked the currency's lowest level since May 2009. The dollar (CUR_USDYEN 94.1400, +0.6900, +0.7384%) bought 94.20 yen, compared to 93.39 yen late Thursday. The yen tends to suffer the most among major currencies when investors become more comfortable taking on riskier assets, including stocks and commodities. The U.S. Commerce Department said sales of new homes surged to a 411,000 pace last month, much higher than predicted but boosted by a soon-to-expire tax break. See more on home sales. A separate report showed orders of durable goods dropped in March due to aircrafts. Orders for the kinds of equipment businesses invest in to maintain or expand their productive capacity - rose by the most since June. Read about durable-goods orders. "Inventories in the durable goods area have swung from contraction to expansion," economists at RDQ Economics wrote in a note. "We are sticking with our theme of a V-shaped recovery in the manufacturing sector -- more U-shaped for GDP -- and judge this report to support that view." Currency strategists said it was unlikely that Greece's request for 45 billion euro ($59.9 billion) would provide lasting support for the euro amid ongoing worries about sovereign debt woes in Greece and in other nations in the 16-nation euro zone. The request, announced in a televised address by Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, follows a bond market rout that pushed Greek borrowing costs to unsustainable levels. Read about Greece's aid request. The spread between yields on Greek debt and German bunds rose to the most since the euro was introduced in 1999, which erased risks associated with Greece's currency, the drachma. The euro has actually proved somewhat resilient to the most recent carnage in the Greek credit market, which saw the yield on two-year bonds more than double to more than 11% this month, said Steven Barrow, strategist at Standard Bank. That's an indication that worries about default or a possible restructuring of Greek debt are largely priced into the euro and that risks of a further plunge by the single currency lie in the threat of contagion, meaning risks that fears of default spread to other debt-troubled nations in the euro zone, he said. "We do still feel that there's sufficient juice in the tank to take euro/dollar down to our $1.25 target, but it looks as if this saga may have to take another very significant turn for the worse for the euro to really collapse," Barrow said, in a research note. Such turns could include Greece's departure from the euro or "massive contagion" through the rest of the euro zone, he said. G20 starts Later Friday, finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 countries will meet in Washington, D.C., and Greece's debt woes will likely feature on the agenda. "The Greek problems have taken up a significant part of the debate," Japan's Finance Minister Naoto Kan told reporters late Thursday, after a dinner in Washington for the Group of Seven developed countries, who will also attend the G20 meeting. Kan said his G-7 counterparts and central-bank heads largely left aside the issue of China's currency, according to Dow Jones Newswires. The British pound turned down versus the U.S. dollar, trimming earlier gains after first-quarter British gross domestic product data showed a more modest than expected expansion of 0.2%. Read about British GDP. Sterling recently bought $1.5335, down marginally from Thursday.

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