The single currency gained on Thursday as investors were optimistic and hoped for quick implementation of economic reforms in Italy and Greece.

Director of Currency research, Kathy Lien from GFT commented, “The main question is how quickly will we see additional action from European policy makers, Even though the euro-dollar has rallied, doing nothing is not an option right now. The mild rebound in the euro is fueled partially by the premise that European officials are working frantically on a more aggressive response to the crisis.”

The euro did saw some pressure on the rumors of reduced credit rating of France by later Standard & Poor’s announced that France would retain its AAA rating.

The euro gained to 1.3604 on Thursday against the US dollar as compared to 1.3553 on Wednesday’s late trading hours. The dollar index DXY which measures the greenback’s performance against is major counterpart currencies declined to 77.660 on Thursday as compared to Wednesday’s North American trading session.

The US dollar also fell versus the Japanese yen to 77.67 on Thursday as compared to 77.87 on late Wednesday. Among other currencies the British Pound declined versus the US dollar to 1.5924 on Thursday as compared to 1.5926 on Wednesday’s late trading hours. The Pound Sterling was also down against the single currency as investors were uncertain about the Bank of England’s future direction of monetary policy.