The dollar rose against all but one of 16 major peers tracked by Bloomberg as investors sought the safest assets before an Italian vote on austerity plans and European bank stress-test results. The U.S. currency appreciated most against higher-yielding currencies after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke tempered expectations the central bank will resume buying bonds in a testimony to the Senate Banking Committee yesterday. The greenback sank earlier after Standard & Poor’s became the second rating company this week to say it may cut the U.S.’s top credit grade. Switzerland’s franc traded near a record high against the euro after a flare-up in the sovereign-debt crisis this week threatened to engulf Italy. “There’s a flight to quality, if you can call the dollar quality, that’s clearly the issue here,” said Carl Hammer, chief foreign-exchange strategist at Stockholm-based SEB AG. “There are huge risks out there.” The dollar rose 0.9 percent against South Africa’s rand to 6.9015 as of 10:07 a.m. in London and appreciated 0.7 percent versus Australia’s dollar to $1.0652. Against the euro, the dollar was little changed at $1.4135, after rising as much as 0.4 percent to $1.42. It was 0.1 percent stronger at 79.23 yen. The euro traded little changed at 111.97 yen, and 0.1 percent higher at 1.1558 Swiss francs. To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Dobson in London at pdobson2@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Tilles at dtilles@bloomberg.net.

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