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Dollar surges vs yen

NEW YORK: The dollar rose against the yen at midday on short-covering, but the market was quiet and trading was thin ahead of the long Easter weekend in Euorpe and Friday's release of March U.S. jobs data, dealers said.

The dollar has been wedged below its recent 26-month high of 107.68 yen and has been range-bound versus the mark and the yen ahead of Friday's release of March U.S. payroll data.

"It's very quiet. There's not all that much going through. The dollar is trading up but it's not like people are wildly involved," Alfonso Alejo, senior proprietary trader at Sakura Bank Ltd, said.

At midday the dollar rose to 107.40/50 yen after opening at 107.20/30. Against the mark the U.S. currency was slightly higher at 1.4810/15 versus 1.4806/11.

Economists expect non-farm payrolls to be up 60,000 in March, following an extraordinary 705,000 rise in February.

Some speculators had shorted the dollar against the yen, expecting talk of potential dollar selling around 107.70-108.00 yen to put downward pressure on the U.S. currency this morning, traders said.

But selling pressure failed to emerge and short-covering saw the dollar rise from its opening level to 107.40/50 yen.

In other trading, the dollar was 1.1921/28 Swiss francs at midday against 1.1925/28.

Against the Canadian dollar, it was Canadian $1.3553/58 versus C$1.3542/47.

Sterling was $1.5242/49 against $1.5250/60.-Reuter