The dollar and yen rose Friday after a report showed the U.S. unemployment rate spiked and the economy lost more jobs than expected, stoking concerns about the U.S. economy and restoring safe-haven demand for both currencies.

The European Central Bank kept its main refinancing rate unchanged at a record low of 1.0 percent on Thursday, as expected by economists.

The Bank of England said on Thursday it would expand its quantitative easing program by 25 billion pounds to help kick-start Britain's recession-hit economy.

Investors are braced for signs on Thursday that the European Central Bank will soon start weaning banks off cheap and abundant liquidity given that expiry dates are approaching for the central bank's crisis measures.

The Bank of England's injection of 175 billion pounds ($289 billion) into the economy hasn't yet pulled Britain out of recession, and the central bank now faces a difficult decision on whether to raise the stakes.

The dollar held steady against a basket of currencies Thursday, a day ahead of a key government jobs report that will shed light on the health of the U.S. economy.

China should unshackle the yuan from its dollar peg and follow Singapore's lead in targeting a basket of currencies to determine its exchange rate, Merrill Lynch's China economist said on Wednesday.

Britain's service sector showed its strongest activity since the start of the credit crunch in October, helped by growth in new orders to a two-year high, a purchasing managers survey showed on Wednesday.

The developing economies of East Asia and the Pacific will grow by 6.7 percent this year and 7.8  percent in 2010, reflecting China's strong expansion, but other  countries in Asia face much weaker growth, the World Bank said

The dollar fell in choppy trading against the euro Wednesday after the Federal Reserve left interest rates steady, as expected, and said it intends to keep interest rates low for some time.

The European Union's former communist members spooked the West earlier this year, when some investors and analysts believed their crumbling economies could send shockwaves through the system and even sink the EU. The International Monetary Fund and the EU have pumped billions of euros in Central and Eastern European countries to alleviate the pain of the crisis, but their economies are still suffering. Click ahead to see what they expect for this year.

Swiss bank UBS does not expect a recovery of client inflows anytime soon as it continues to struggle to rebuild its reputation after a bitter U.S. tax row even as its underlying performance improves.

The U.S. dollar rose to a one-month high against a basket of currencies Tuesday as concerns about the global banking sector and weaker equity markets boosted the greenback's safe-haven appeal.

The International Monetary Fund said on Monday it sold 200 tons of gold to the Reserve Bank of India for $6.7 billion, quietly executing half of a long-planned bullion sale that had threatened to slow gold's rally.

The world will slump into a depression similar to that in the 1930s if stimulus measures are pulled out too soon, an economist warned. But investors have a chance to make good money in stock markets, a strategist said.