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Most IMM currency futures close lower

CHICAGO: IMM currency futures closed mostly lower on Friday in thin choppy trade ahead of Saturday's Group of Seven meeting in Tokyo.

March yen settled higher, driven by brisk buying at the open that traders attributed to likely short-covering.

Growing sentiment that the G7 is unlikely to endorse a weaker yen added support.

Overnight comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers strengthened sentiment that no clear statement about the yen would come from the finance ministers meeting in Tokyo, analysts said.

Summers said Japan and Europe must do more to boost their growth rates and concentrate on improving the fundamentals of their own economies.

European Central Bank Chief Economist Otmar Issing said overnight that the ECB did not have a specific stance on the yen going into the G7 meeting.

"Whatever comes out of that meeting is going to determine how the dollar behaves in the early part of next week," said Jordan Rosner, chief economist at Optima Investment Research. "If they repeat the same sort of blase call that they had after the G7 meeting in September, then the dollar/yen probably won't do much."

The March euro ended lower after opening soft, then breaking support at $1.01270, $1.01130 and $1.01050, pressured by selling to buy yen.

Nearby Canadian dollars probed to a contract high of $0.6966 on fund buying, then trimmed gains.

At settlement, March yen was $0.000043 higher at $0.009620, euros off $0.00690 at $1.01360, Swiss francs down $0.0042 at $0.6305, sterling off $0.0044 at $1.6494, Canadian dollar up $0.0038 at $0.6959, Australian dollars off $0.0023 at $0.6638 and Mexican pesos off $0.000425 at $0.103725.-Reuters