Bernanke comments help USD

The US dollar saw gains Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that even though it is not clear where inflation will go in the US, it could well be limited by declining commodities prices, a stabilizing dollar and a slowing of growth in the US economy.

At the same time, the euro was hurt by a decline of 7.4 percent in industrial orders in the Eurozone and the pound was weaker on new data showing no growth in the UK economy in the second quarter.

In late morning trade in New York the dollar traded at $1.4795 to the euro while it took ¥109.9600 to buy a dollar and the yen also declined in relation to the euro, to ¥162.6911.

Meanwhile, the pound traded at 79.79 to the euro, while it took $1.8588 to buy a pound.

Also helping the greenback was a report that Korea Development Bank could be interested in buying Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH).

The same report hurt the yen in relation to the South African rand and the Brazilian real as it sent investors back to purchases of higher-yield currencies financed by the low-yielding yen.

Not long before noon in New York, the yen traded at ¥14.357 to the rand and at ¥68.038 to the real

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