The dollar held near a multimonth high against other major currencies on Thursday as investors bet fiscal stimulus and aggressive vaccinations will help the United States grow faster than other economies.

The dollars index against a basket of six major currencies stood at 93.239, close to a fivemonth high of 93.439 reached on Wednesday.

The gains came as the euro, the biggest component in the index, suffers from concerns the euro zones economic recovery is being hampered by a third wave of COVID19 infections.

President Emmanuel Macron ordered France into its third national lockdown and said schools would close for three weeks while the currency bloc also lagged the United States in vaccination programmes.

The euro changed hands at 1.1722, after hitting a near fivemonth low of 1.1704. Against the British pound, the common currency hit a 13month low of 0.85025 pound.

The U.S. currency held firm against the yen after ending March with its biggest monthly gains since November 2016.

The dollars gain will probably slow down but the bias is still for the dollar to strengthen, said Masaru Ishibashi, joint general manager of trading at Sumitomo Mitsui Bank.

The dollar traded at 110.74 yen, having risen to as much as 110.97, its highest in a year.

Yenselling due to Japanese companies foreign direct investment is coming back after a slowdown due to the pandemic last year, said Yujiro Goto, chief FX strategist at Nomura Securities.

Japanese conglomerate Hitachi on…