European session: the dollar rose

07:00Germany Retail sales, real adjustedNovember -1.3% +0.9%+1.2%

07:00Germany Retail sales, real unadjusted, y/yNovember -0.8% -1.6%-0.9%

08:50France Services PMI(finally)December 46.046.045.2

08:55Germany Services PMI(finally)December 52.152.152.0

09:00Eurozone Services PMI(finally)December 47.847.847.8

09:30United Kingdom Purchasing Manager Index ServicesDecember 50.250.448.9

09:30United Kingdom Net Lending to Individuals, blnNovember -0.30.4-0.1

09:30United Kingdom Mortgage ApprovalsNovember 53.054.254.0

10:00Eurozone Harmonized CPI, Y/YNovember +2.2%+2.1%+2.2%

The dollar strengthened the most in seven weeks against the yen on speculation improving U.S. employment data will encourage policy makers to bring an early end to asset purchases.

The U.S. currency strengthened through $1.30 per euro for the first time in three weeks after Federal Reserve minutes showed policy makers may end their $85 billion monthly bond purchases this year, halting a program that tends to debase the greenback.

A few members of the Federal Open Market Committee said “ongoing asset purchases would likely be warranted until about the end of 2013,” minutes of the Dec. 11-12 meeting released yesterday showed. “Several others thought that it would probably be appropriate to slow or to stop purchases well before the end of 2013.”

The yen dropped beyond 88 per dollar for the first time since July 2010 amid speculation the Bank of Japan will boost money supply to end deflation.

The yen headed for an eighth week of losses against the dollar, tumbling 2.7 percent since Dec. 28. Even so, it is still about 15 percent above its 10-year average of 101.22 per dollar.

Japan’s newly installed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Jan. 1 the most urgent issue for his country was to break out of currency appreciation and deflation. “Bold” monetary policy is one of the three prongs of his economic measures, he said.

The Bank of Japan  will hold its first policy meeting this year on Jan. 21-22 after expanding its asset-purchase program by 10 trillion yen at its previous gathering on Dec. 20.

The pound fell after the December UK PMI services sector returned to negative territory, falling from 50.2 to 48.9 vs. 50.5. Data on money supply and lending individuals also were worse than expected, showing a decline of 0.2%, and £ 0.1 billion respectively. Consumer lending increased by £ 0.1 billion

EUR / USD: during the European session the pair fell to a new intraday low of $ 1.2996

GBP / USD: during the European session the pair fell to a new intraday low of $ 1.6008

USD / JPY: during the European session, the pair rose to a new intraday high of Y88.40

At 13:30 GMT, Canada will release the unemployment rate, changes in the number of employees, including full and part-time jobs in December, the index of commodity prices for November. In the U.S. at 13:30 GMT will the unemployment rate, changes in the number of people employed in non-agricultural sector, changes in the number of employees in the private sector of the economy, changes in the number of employees in the manufacturing sector of the economy, the change in average hourly wages, 15:00 GMT - ISM composite index for unproductive for December, changes in the volume of industrial orders for November at 16:00 GMT - data on stocks of crude oil from the Department of Energy. At 18:15 GMT a speech member FOMC Charles Plosser, 20:30 GMT and will speak member FOMC member FOMC Janet Yellen.