NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — The dollar rose for a third straight week against the yen as gains in US durable goods orders and home sales suggested the economy is strengthening.Traders bought dollars as the data cooled speculation the Federal Reserve’s next move will be to cut interest rates. The dollar approached a four-year high against the yen after US Treasury Undersecretary Tim Adams indicated the US may resist any European demands to bolster Japan’s currency. The yen touched a record low versus the euro this week.

“We have a good chance that the Fed will stay on hold for a while,” said Michael Malpede, a senior currency analyst in Chicago at Man Global Research. “That is dollar-friendly.”

The dollar climbed 0.3 percent this week to $1.2916 euro. It rose 0.3 percent to 121.54 yen, and reached 121.80 yen on Jan. 22, the highest since March 2003.

The yen set a record low of 158.62 per euro this week before ending little changed at 156.99 yen. It may fall anew next week as reports are forecast to show consumer spending declined in Japan last month.

The Thai baht gained the most among about 70 world currencies this week, by 3.8 percent to 33.93 per dollar, the strongest since 1997. It rose because recent measures to curb speculation in the baht reduced its supply among overseas investors, central bank Governor Tarisa Watanagase said.

Norway’s krone posted the biggest advance among the 16 most actively traded currencies this week. It rose 1.7 percent to 6.3381 per dollar after Norway’s central bank raised its benchmark rate by a quarter-point to 3.75 percent.

US orders for durable goods such as machinery increased 3.1 percent in December, following a 2.2 percent rise the previous month, the Commerce Department said yesterday.

“The report definitely shows very nice resilience in the economy,” said Boris Schlossberg, senior currency strategist at Forex Capital Markets LLC in New York. “It clearly confounded most of the dollar bears. That’s definitely positive for the dollar.”

Sales of new homes rose 4.8 percent to an annual rate of 1.12 million units in December, a separate report showed yesterday.

Interest-rate futures for July show traders see a 4 percent chance the Fed will cut its 5.25 percent benchmark rate in the first half of the year, down from a 72 percent likelihood a month ago. The Fed has kept its overnight lending rate unchanged since lifting it a 17th consecutive time in June.

US 10-year note yields, at 4.87 percent, are 3.18 percentage points above Japanese 10-year yields, close to the most since July. The yield premium above the 10-year German bund was about 0.8 percentage point, near a six-week high.

“I refer you to our September communiqué, where we said exchange rates should be set in open markets, based on fundamentals,” Adams said in an interview yesterday in Davos, Switzerland. He was referring to the Group of Seven’s statement after their September meeting in Singapore.

European finance ministers, who gather next week in Brussels, have complained in the past six months about the yen’s decline to a record against the euro, out of concern it will crimp exports. G-7 finance ministers and central bank governors meet in Germany next month.