Dollar Up, Japan GDP Fails to Ignite Yen By Hideyuki Sano TOKYO (Reuters) - The dollar jumped on Monday after an upward revision in Japanese growth data failed to push the yen above its recent one-month peak, prompting investors to dump the Japanese currency. The dollar's vault against the yen surprised many traders, who had expected it to stay under pressure on worries about the U.S. current account gap after Friday saw the U.S. trade deficit widening in January to its second biggest on record. The growing trade gap magnified worries about whether the United States can sustainably finance its massive current account deficit, especially ahead of U.S. capital flows figures on Tuesday and current account data on Wednesday. "We were just discussing among us that the dollar might rebound if this week's data showed that the U.S. was indeed able to finance the deficits for now," said a trader at a British bank said. "Then the dollar rose even before those numbers." As of 10:32 p.m. EST, the dollar bought around 104.45 yen, up about a half yen from 103.95 yen in late U.S. trade on Friday. The dollar initially fell on the latest Japan's gross domestic product (GDP) data to around 103.70 yen, near last week's one-month low of 103.65. GDP for the last three months of 2004 was revised up to growth of 0.1 percent from a preliminary 0.1 percent contraction, beating expectations for a fall of around 0.2 percent. But the yen soon met heavy selling from Japanese investors and importers as well as option-players and speculators wanting to lock to profits. "Japanese traders are not willing to sell the dollar because they can see big dollar bids lined up above 103.50 yen," said Takehiko Jimbo, chief manager of currency sales at Mitsubishi Trust and Banking Corp. CURRENT ACCOUNT EFFECT? Some economists said the growth figures were not that promising, as the main contributor to the upward revision was a rise in inventories, which could signal weak demand.     Continued ... Quelle "Dollar Up, Japan GDP Fails to Ignite Yen" : reuters.com Main page for "Dollar Up, Japan GDP Fails to Ignite Yen"