New York, March 19 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar rose against the euro and the yen as a deadline approached for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to leave the country of face a U.S.-lead attack. Demand for the dollar increased as traders speculated a war against Iraq would end quickly, boosting business and consumer confidence in the U.S. and luring investment to the country. ``The market is in a transition period from a weaker dollar before the war to a post-war rally,'' said Toru Umemoto, a strategist at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo, the seventh-biggest trader in the $1.2-trillion-a-day currency market.
At 7:55 a.m. in New York, the U.S. currency strengthened to $1.0582 per euro compared with $1.0636 yesterday. The dollar rose to 119.30 yen from 118.87 yen yesterday. Stock futures advanced, fueling demand for dollars. Standard & Poor's futures for June delivery rose 2.8 to 866.45 as U.S.-led forces preparing for an invasion of Iraq moved into the demilitarized zone straddling the Kuwait-Iraq border, the U.K.- based Sky News reported. The troops are assembling in their forward battle positions, Sky News said citing a U.K. military official it didn't identify. U.S. stocks yesterday rose for a fifth day, giving the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average their longest winning streaks in almost two years. The S&P 500 rose 0.4 percent, while the Dow gained 0.6 percent. A quick end to the war ``will bring oil prices down and send the U.S. stock market much higher,'' according to Morgan Stanley's Umemoto. The dollar may strengthen to 95 U.S. cents against the euro and 130 yen in the next three months, he said. In other trading, the dollar was at 1.3882 Swiss francs from 1.3833. The British pound was at $1.5565 from $1.5667. The yen was at 126.32 against the euro, from 126.38. //www.quote.bloomberg.com