Policy makers are trying to restore stability and ignite growth by flooding their financial systems with cash. European banks got 529.5 billion euros ($705 billion) in a second round of three-year loans from the European Central Bank on Feb. 29.
The yen has been the worst performing major currency this year, losing 8.5 percent against the dollar, as Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa indicated last week the central bank will keep using monetary policy as a tool to tackle deflation. The BOJ unexpectedly added 10 trillion yen ($128 billion) to its asset-purchase program on Feb. 14.
'Different Situation'
Foreign demand for U.S. assets and the increasing use of the euro as a funding currency for so-called carry trades have also helped support the dollar. Net buying of long-term equities, notes and bonds rose to $101 billion in January from $19.2 billion in December, the Treasury said March 15.
"Better U.S. data has helped the dollar versus the euro, sterling and yen," Brian Kim, a currency strategist in Stamford, Connecticut, at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said in a March 9 telephone interview. "It makes sense that it would be strengthening against those currencies because their central banks are in a bit of a different situation, their economic growth profile and outlook is in a different situation, so we see some advantage for the dollar against them."