LONDON (AFX) - The dollar continued to push higher against the euro and the yen in quiet midday trade as the period of consolidation continued, dealers said. Euro-dollar touched an intraday low of 0.9808, venturing close to the 0.98 level, but dealers said this is not a key level for the cross. "The euro's still coming off, but 0.98 is not a key level people are looking at," Paul Bednarczyk, forex strategist at 4Cast, said. "People might start to panic a bit at 0.9750," he said. Some market players are happy with these levels, he said, noting that many euro longs are being shaken out of the market, he said. Dollar-yen continued to benefit from the euro selloff. "It offers the path of least resistance," Bednarczyk said, noting that the pressure is now off the Bank of Japan to intervene in the currency markets. The dollar's sensitivity to accounting and corporate governance scandals appears to be waning, Bednarczyk said. "The forex market's attention span is very short," Bednarczyk said. News overnight that Qwest Communications International will restate financial results for 2000 and 2001, after discovering numerous bookkeeping errors, failed to curb the dollar's gains. Will Rugg, senior currency strategist at Standard & Poor's MMS, said Aug 14, when company executives have to sign for the veracity of their earnings statements, could uncover more accounting scandals. "Aug 14 could trigger more dollar falls," he said. However, Kamal Sharma, currency strategist at Commerzbank, said the potential fallout from Aug 14 is limited, as so much bad news on the US equity front is already priced into the market. Meanwhile, sterling continued to outperform the euro and Swiss franc, benefiting from the lack of a build up of longs, which has exacerbated the euro's recent falls. Sterling's resilience is also underpinned by the relative strength of the UK economy, Rugg said. Euro-sterling is trading close to the 0.64 level, which 388 UK manufacturers cited as the most appropriate and sustainable entry rate at which the UK should join the European single currency, according to the Cap Gemini Ernst & Young/CIPS Business Outlook Survey.