NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The euro rose against the dollar Thursday, as European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet disappointed investors looking for new support for the region's stressed economies, but talk of the central bank purchasing peripheral government debt helped give the common currency a boost. Market participants said the ECB during Trichet's press conference had been "fairly aggressive" buyers of sovereign debt in the periphery of the euro zone. The euro rose to $1.32 after having earlier fallen to $1.3060 on the initial disappointment in Trichet's comments. Jens Nordvig, head of G-10 foreign exchange strategy at Nomura Securities in New York, said, "There's clear evidence that there's been strong central bank activity in Portuguese" government bonds, helping the euro recoup its losses as the central bank was "taking action instead of talking about it." Thursday morning, the euro was at $1.3195 from $1.3141 late Wednesday, according to EBS via CQG. The dollar was at Y84.17, from Y84.19, while the euro was at Y110.95 from Y110.65. The U.K. pound was at $1.5580 from $1.5620. The dollar was at CHF0.9974 from CHF1.0024. The ICE Dollar Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against a trade-weighted basket of others, was at 80.446 from 80.672. Trichet in his prepared statement and press conference didn't provide any new information on euro-zone bond buying, which disappointed some market participants, leading them to earlier flee the common currency. "There was a lot of speculation that the ECB would come in and do something larger... do their part to shore up the euro zone," said Brian Kim, currency strategist at UBS in Stamford, Conn. "People had been looking for some more color on the bond-buying program," he said. Actual bond purchases, though, helped the euro climb out of its earlier hole against its rivals, said Ron Leven, currency strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York. He noted he couldn't confirm actual purchases, but just the talk of such purchases has helped the common currency trade with a more buoyant tone. "It's very important because it shows commitment to making the euro work," Leven said. While the euro might receive a temporary bounce from any bond purchases, it is still at risk over the longer term, analysts said, as the measures put forth to help struggling euro-zone nations, such as Greece and Portugal, offer only temporary solutions. "The situation in the euro zone has become critical," said Jane Foley, senior foreign exchange strategist at Rabobank in London. "Markets have failed to accept that the bailout of Ireland will draw a line under the sovereign-debt crisis and speculation about the fiscal integrity of countries within the core of [the union] is now being questioned," she said, referring to much larger Spain. In the meantime, the ECB will continue to offer special longer-term liquidity tenders in 2011, Trichet said. The extra liquidity measures were due to be phased out early next year, and so the new decision should offer some relief to the euro zone's troubled debt markets. The ECB will now offer three-month refinancing operations at a fixed rate with a full allotment throughout the first quarter of 2011 and at least until April 12, while being adjusted "as appropriate," Trichet said. Meanwhile, better-than-expected U.S. pending home sales for October also contributed to the euro's gains, helping higher-yielding currencies, such as the Australian and New Zealand dollars, establish leads against the U.S. dollar.

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