The euro eased in early trading Friday on European exchanges, with markets quoting 1.3119 dollars in the wake of remarks by U.S. President George W. Bush backing a strong-dollar policy. The early quotation was well below the 1.3232 dollars reference rate set Thursday by the European Central Bank. Bush's remarks in an interview in the USA Today newspaper backing a strong dollar helped to shore up the ailing U.S. currency, traders said. Comments by a U.S. Federal Reserve banker, William Poole that the phase of moderate interest rate hikes would end, had an impact also. This was taken as a sign that the Fed, which has been raising rates one-quarter point at a time, may now boost rates even more steeply in the period ahead.
