Dollar near six-week peak against euro

The dollar held near 6-week peaks versus the euro on Tuesday, keeping firm after the previous session's upbeat US manufacturing survey offered it support ahead of key data this week, while high oil prices hurt the yen.
A rise in the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing index for July, reported on Monday, suggested a recent soft patch in the US economy may have been a blip and was enough to keep markets focused on Friday's non-farm payrolls data.
The dollar shook off recent security concerns sparked by an official warning of attacks on financial institutions in the US, while markets looked ahead to June figures for personal incomes and consumption as well as the PCE Price Index at 1230 GMT.
"The market is pretty much on hold ahead of payrolls at the end of the week, but it's on hold with a slightly dollar-positive bent," said Chris Gothard, currency analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman.
"The ISM survey yesterday rekindled some of the confidence in the US economy that perhaps had been dented after the GDP report last week. We've also got oil prices hitting record highs and that's hurting Asian currencies."
By 1035 GMT the dollar traded little changed against the euro around $1.2015, having earlier tested last week's 6-week peak around $1.1990.
It was around a quarter percentage point higher against the yen near 111.00 yen, about 1-1/2 yen below last week's two-month high. The yen was about 0.20 percent lower against the euro around 133.35 per euro.
Dealers saw Friday's jobs report as one of the best gauges for now of the health of the economy and the rate of the Federal Reserve's monetary tightening policy, and said the long wait for the data could keep the dollar somewhat constrained.
The Federal Open Market Committee meets on August 10 and is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter point to 1.5 percent.
The core PCE price index is the Fed's favoured measure of inflation and analysts had been looking for it to tick higher in June after 1.6 percent in May, although the jobs numbers were this week's main event.
"The focus is clearly on the payroll data ... they are not going to be a panacea to the markets' questions. Before that each data item is taking on disproportionate importance," said Neil Mellor, currency strategist at Bank of New York.