Sixty percent of the 28 analysts, traders and investors polled from Tokyo to New York on Friday recommended buying the U.S. currency against the euro this week, compared with about 40 percent the week before. The dollar may also be buoyed by the restoration of power to New York after the biggest electrical blackout in North American history.

Investors haven't ``yet caught up with the fact that growth in the U.S. is going to be better than in Europe,'' said Robert Sinche, chief currency strategist in New York at Citigroup Inc., the world's largest financial services company. The dollar will gain ``as private foreign investment moves into the U.S. Treasury and equity markets,'' he said.

The dollar gained to $1.1233 per euro at 9:26 a.m. in London from $1.1254 late Friday. It has risen 1.4 percent in the past three months. The U.S. currency was trading at 119.25 yen compared with 119.20.

``The U.S. economy is picking up and the pace of recovery is faster than other regions,'' boosting the dollar, said Kazuhiro Takeuchi, senior manager of the trading group at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. in Hong Kong, a unit of the world's biggest bank.

Confidence, Jobs

The University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment may advance this month to 91.5 from 90.9 in July, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The report, originally scheduled for release last Friday, was delayed until Tuesday because the power failures, which spread to parts of the Midwest, including Michigan.

U.S. jobless claims probably fell to 395,000 last week from 398,000 the week before, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News in advance of a report by the Labor Department on Thursday. Claims of less than 400,000 suggest an expanding labor market, most of the economists said.

The dollar's gains may be short-lived, some analysts said. ``The employment numbers are still incredibly sluggish,'' David Bloom, a currency strategist in London at HSBC Holdings Plc., said in a televised interview with Bloomberg News on Friday. ``The dollar is going to start taking a leg down in the fourth quarter again.'' Bloom predicts the U.S. currency may weaken to about $1.15 per euro.