Dollar ticks lower after Europe bank stress tests

NEW YORK: The dollar dipped against other major currencies and the euro gained Friday after the European Union announced that only eight of 91 banks had failed stress tests.

The US currency was traded at $1.4156 to the euro around 2100 GMT, compared to $1.4141 at the same time Thursday.

Ahead of the keenly awaited results of the stress tests, the euro had slipped against the dollar as traders braced for a grim reading on the health of European banks amid concerns of a spreading debt crisis in the eurozone.

The European Banking Authority said that eight banks had flunked the assessments of whether they had sufficient capital to withstand financial disaster scenarios.

That was fewer than expected, but the EBA also announced that 16 banks had narrowly missed failing the test.

"While only eight banks failed the test, with 16 additional banks on the cusp of failure, market participants did not take kindly to the data," said Christopher Vecchio at DailyFX.

The dollar also weakened a bit against the Japanese currency, to 79.12 yen from 79.13 the prior day. It fell to 0.8155 Swiss francs from 0.8160 francs.

But the greenback rose against the British pound, which traded at $1.6136, compared to $1.6142 late Thursday.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011