The yen slid against the euro for the first time in six days as stocks rose and the German newspaper Handelsblatt reported euro-area countries are readying a new loan for Greece, sapping demand for the currency as a haven. The euro fluctuated against the dollar after the Athens newspaper Kathimerini said, without citing its sources, the International Monetary Fund also is arranging new aid for Greece, an 80 billion-euro ($115 billion) to 100 billion-euro plan. The Swiss franc dropped after data showed inflation slowed in April. Norway’s krone gained the most versus the yen on bets inflation will spur higher interest rates. “By providing more aid to Greece, essentially European policy makers buy more time, so the contagion effects really aren’t as imminent as they would be,” said Mark McCormick, a New York-based currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. “Overall you have firmer equity and commodity prices, putting the safe-haven currencies, yen and Swiss, in offer.” The yen fell 0.2 percent to 115.66 per euro, snapping a five-day gain, at 9:12 a.m. in New York. The Japanese currency depreciated 0.3 percent to 80.61 per dollar. The common European currency slipped 0.1 percent to $1.4346 after gaining 0.2 percent and losing as much as 0.7 percent. It dropped to $1.4255 yesterday, the weakest level since April 19. The MSCI World Index rose 0.5 percent, and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures gained 0.3 percent. Silver, copper and rubber all gained. Franc Slides The Swiss franc dropped against 15 of its 16 most-traded counterparts, weakening 0.6 percent to 87.74 centimes per dollar and falling 0.7 percent to 1.2612 per euro. Consumer prices increased 0.3 percent from a year earlier, the Federal Statistics Office in Neuchatel said today. Economists forecast a gain of 0.6 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey. The franc is the best-performing major currency in the past 12 months, according to the Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes, a gauges of 10 developed-nation currencies, gaining 13 percent. That performance is followed by a 7.6 percent rally in the Swedish krona. Norway’s krone strengthened 0.6 percent against the euro to 7.8111 and gained 0.6 percent to 5.4364 per dollar. Norwegian underlying inflation, which excludes energy costs and taxes, quickened to a 1.3 percent annual pace in April from 0.8 percent the previous month, data showed today. Crude oil, the nation’s largest export, was little changed at $115.95 a barrel in London after rising 0.4 percent and falling 2 percent. European Loan Euro-area countries are readying a further “two-digit’ billion-euro loan for Greece, Handelsblatt reported, citing unidentified ‘‘euro-zone sources’’ in Brussels. The exact figure is still to be decided, the newspaper said, adding that a figure of some 60 billion euros is being discussed in Brussels. Speculation about new financial assistance from Europe and the IMF came after S&P yesterday downgraded Greece’s credit rating for the fourth time since April 2010, rekindling concern that the region’s debt crisis is escalating. Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, a European Central Bank Executive Board member, said a Greek debt restructuring would leave the nation’s banks “on their knees.” He spoke in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa. “The fear will be of potential contagion as well,” said Neil Jones, head of European hedge-fund sales at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. in London. “When investors read about debt restructuring and major problems in the banking system, you can understand why the euro gets sold heavily on the back of comments like that.” Too Early German Chancellor Angela Merkel today refused to commit to more aid, saying that it’s still too early to decide whether the Greek government will need further financial help to overcome the debt crisis. New Zealand’s dollar may be as much as 20 percent overvalued relative to estimates of the equilibrium exchange rate, the IMF said. Part of the overvaluation reflects the large positive interest-rate differential, which may dissipate with eventual tightening by major central banks, the Washington-based group said as part of an annual review of the country’s economy. The currency, nicknamed the kiwi, dropped 0.3 percent to 79.33 U.S. cents and fell 0.1 percent to 63.97 yen. The Australian dollar was little changed at $1.0807 after Treasurer Wayne Swan released his 2011-2012 budget in Canberra. The government announced it will end 23 years of spending growth to ease inflation from the biggest mining-investment boom in the nation’s history and plans measures to help companies hurt by a record-high currency. To contact the reporters on this story: Lucy Meakin in London at lmeakin1@bloomberg.net; Allison Bennett in New York at abennett23@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

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