NEW YORK, Nov 23: The dollar scored a second straight week of gains versus the euro and yen, rising again on Friday as brighter US economic data and a strong performance on Wall Street lured foreign investors to American assets.

Analysts said the dollar’s rise to a 2-1/2-week high against the euro was fueled by traders forced to reverse bets the US currency would fall after blue-chip shares gained 2.6 percent this week and after almost $20 billion in investment grade debt was sold to hungry investors.

The greenback’s rebound — coming against worries that the European Central Bank may not cut interest rates as much as markets would like and that Japan’s outlook is again looking grim — may also persist into next week’s holiday-shortened trading.

It does appear foreigners are not turning their nose up at US assets, said Sean Callow, currency strategist at IDEAglobal. In order to sustain dollar short positions, you need fresh bad news. And next week it’s not obvious where that’s coming from.

Speculators in currency futures markets still had close to historically high long euro positions for the week ending Nov. 19, despite paring them back some, suggesting the dollar may have more room to rise next week.—Reuters