Dollar Falls on Japan Quake, European Meeting

NEW YORK, Mar. 14  -- The U.S. dollar fell against major currencies in late New York trading on Friday as a massive earthquake in Japan lifted the yen and eurozone leaders gathered to discuss debt problems.

Japan was hit by a devastating earthquake on Friday, which raised concerns that a large amount of Japanese yen would be repatriated back to Japan to pay for the damages.

The dollar initially climbed against the yen slightly on Friday, but sank shortly after the investors realized the disaster was much severer than expected.

Meanwhile, eurozone leaders met to discuss debt problems on Friday. The meeting was also regarded as a warm-up to a potentially monumental EU summit starting on March 24.

The euro was bolstered against the dollar to near 1.39 in late New York trading on Friday.

For the week, the dollar index has gained 0.6 percent, the biggest weekly gain in two months. However, it's still 2.8 percent down this year.

In late Friday trading, the dollar bought 81.88 yen, comparing with 83.02 late Thursday, and the euro rose to 1.3890 dollars from 1.3794.

The British pound also rose to 1.6071 dollars from 1.6054. The dollar fell from 0.9322 to 0.9298 against the Swiss franc, and also dropped to 0.9729 Canadian dollars from 0.9748.