AKIPRESS.COM - The euro rose against most of its major peers after the results of European Central Bank stress tests eased concern that balance sheets at some of the region’s lenders were too weak, reports Bloomberg.

The single currency held gains versus the dollar even as a report showed business confidence in Germany, the euro area’s biggest economy, fell for a sixth month. Brazil’s real was set to start with a “weak tone” this week after President Dilma Rousseff narrowly won a second term, according to Commerzbank AG. South Korea’s won appreciated along with regional stocks, while the dollar dropped.

“The stress test results in terms of the capital needed do appear to be better than expected, and this has helped the euro to some extent,” said Alvin T. Tan, a foreign-exchange strategist at Societe Generale SA in London. The euro also benefited from “a broadly weaker dollar” which “appears to be led by the fact that risk sentiment appears to be coming back,” he said.

The euro added 0.1 percent to $1.2688 at 10:13 a.m. in London. It slipped 0.4 percent to 136.66 yen after earlier touching 137.47, the most since Oct. 9.

The dollar fell 0.4 percent to 107.78 yen, while the won strengthened 0.5 percent to close in Seoul at 1,052.25 per dollar. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) of stocks added 0.6 percent.