(Reuters) - Sterling traded near a nine-day low against the euro on Friday after Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook on UK government debt to negative. The downgrade late on Thursday puts S&P's outlook on the UK in line with other ratings agencies Fitch and Moody's. S&P said it sees a one-in-three chance that Britain will lose its prized triple-A credit rating in the next two years. Sterling's losses against the euro were likely to be temporary since a credit rating downgrade was not imminent. But the move puts more focus on Britain's poor growth outlook. The euro rose to a nine day high of 81.29 British pence in early trade. The single currency was last trading at 81.21 pence, up marginally on the day. "(The cut) is not structurally positive, but the reaction hasn't been huge," said Geoff Kendrick, currency analyst at Nomura, adding the April highs of around 82 pence would provide key resistance to further euro strength. The euro had hit its highest level since late October before the latest bout of political turbulence in Italy unsettled investors' confidence in the euro zone's progress on its debt troubles at the start of this week. Against the dollar the pound gained 0.1 percent to $1.6122 (9999 pence), off a six-week high of $1.6173 (1.0031 pounds) hit on Wednesday. The dollar has come under pressure in recent sessions both against the pound and the euro after the Federal Reserve increased its asset purchase scheme on Wednesday, with investors also fretting over looming U.S. budget problems. SAFE-HAVEN STATUS Some analysts said although the S&P's negative outlook could raise questions over Britain's status as a safe-haven from the euro zone's troubles, investors were unlikely to sell UK government bonds aggressively. BMO currency analyst Audrey Childe-Freeman said there was a risk of the UK receiving a downgrade in the coming months, but underlined that such fears were not isolated to the UK, with France, the U.S. and Japan all facing similar threats. Childe-Freeman added a broadly improved flow of news on the euro zone - where officials this week agreed the outline for a banking union and approved new loans for Greece - was weakening the UK's safe-haven perception. But analysts at Citi said there was still healthy appetite for gilts in preference to riskier euro zone sovereign bonds and that meant falls for sterling were unlikely to deepen badly. "We doubt that this could grow into a sustained sterling negative," they said in a note, adding that demand for UK gilts was likely to remain high as an alternative to euro zone peripheral bonds and thus support sterling.

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