February 4, 2003	Tuesday	Zul Hijjah 2,1423

LONDON, Feb 3: The dollar was trading in a narrow range against the euro on Monday, easing off earlier gains at the start of a testing week for the US currency on both the economic and geopolitical fronts.

The single European currency was going for to 1.0761 dollars from 1.0768 late on Friday in New York.

The dollar also rose to 120.44 yen from 119.91 on Friday.

After falling heavily in recent weeks, the US unit rebounded on technical factors in morning trading and buying by speculators to cover their positions and take profit in the absence of any major news on Iraq, analysts said.

“I think really this is just a story about technical correction in the dollar and no real news hitting the wires on the geopolitical situation,” said Commerzbank currency strategist Kamal Sharma.

The dollar gave back some of its morning gains after the publication of the ISM index, which was better than expected.—AFP