Euro rises after ceding fears about Greece

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The euro gained against the dollar and the yen eased on Monday as fears about the fiscal problems of Greece, on Sunday after French President Nicolas Sarkozy, give clues about a plan to support Athens.

Sarkozy promised that the euro zone countries to Greece would help if your financial problems worsen. Greece has been a heavy burden on the euro in 2010, which has fallen 4.5 percent against the dollar so far this year and 7.2 percent against the yen.

Managing Director International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told Reuters it was unlikely that Greece's financial problems will spread to other euro area countries with high levels of debt.

"Greece has been a negative factor that has now eased," said Marc Chandler, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York. "In the short term, the country is in a consolidation mode, which is dollar negative," he added.

At 1250 GMT, the euro gained 0.3 percent to $ 1.3665.

"The euro could move higher if it passes the barrier of 1.3720 / 1.3750 dollars, but for now I see who has the momentum," said Antje Praefcke, currency strategist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.

The dollar index, a calculation of the performance of the dollar against a basket of currencies, fell 0.2 percent to 80.262.

The latest data showed that currency positions currency speculators reduced to less than half their bets that the dollar rise in the week of March 2.

Against the yen, the euro rose 0.4 percent to 123.47 points, after hitting a two-week high of 123.90 at the start of the session.

"While the dollar / yen has been supported by Friday's jobs data, the improvement in confidence over Greece clearly is helping the euro / yen," said Derek Halpenny, head of currency research for Europe at Bank of Tokyo - Mitsubishi UFJ.

According Halpenny, the jobs data left U.S. market participants "more convinced about the potential growth of gross domestic product in America."

The data on Friday showed U.S. employers cut fewer jobs than expected in February, reinforcing the idea that the country could be close to creating jobs.

The dollar pared gains against the yen after touching a high of almost two weeks to run stable at 90.35 points.

(Reporting by Jessica Mortimer)