FOREX-Euro buoyed by hopes for Greece debt deal; yen slips

* Euro hits 7-wk high vs yen, 2-mth peak vs dollar

* Hopes Greece nearing debt deal supports euro

* Euro faces resistance at 100-day MA near $1.3334

* Yen dips broadly, cross/yen pairs climb

* Euro/yen extends gains on stops (Fixes literal in headline, updates levels)

By Masayuki Kitano

SINGAPORE, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The euro hit a fresh two-month high versus the dollar on Wednesday, supported by hopes that Greece may soon agree to austerity steps needed to secure a second bailout and avoid a disorderly default.

The single currency also hit a seven-week peak against the yen, its rise gaining steam due to stop-loss buying.

The yen retreated broadly on the crosses, with traders saying the technical outlook for cross/yen pairs had improved after their recent breach of some technical resistance levels.

The euro surged 0.5 percent against the yen to 102.30 yen . It rose as high as 102.44 yen at one point on trading platform EBS, the euro's highest level versus the Japanese currency in about seven weeks.

The single currency rose 0.2 percent versus the dollar to $1.3281, having touched a two-month high of $1.3288 at one point.

While there are suggestions Greece is close to an agreement, Athens politicians have yet to agree to painful austerity measures to receive a second bailout package. They have delayed, once more, the deal deadline to Wednesday.

Even if an agreement is reached, the euro may have limited scope to rally, said Mitul Kotecha, head of global foreign exchange strategy for Credit Agricole in Hong Kong.

"Potentially we may even have a buy-on-rumour, sell-on-fact type of outcome," Kotecha said.

"The eEuro has already strengthened fairly sharply on expectations of some sort of a deal and I think once it does happen we may see a little bit more upside at most," he added.

The next level of resistance for the euro is found at the 100-day moving average of around $1.3334, ahead of $1.3436, the 50 percent retracement of the decline from the late-October high of $1.4248 to the mid-January low of $1.2624.

A trader for a major Japanese bank in Singapore said the euro could see more short-covering if Greece agrees to a deal.

"The sense I get is that some short-term players have been putting on short euro positions," the trader said, adding that there was talk of stop-loss euro bids at levels above $1.3300.

Given such market positioning and because many players still have bearish views on the euro, the possibility of further position unwinding lifting the single currency to around $1.3500 or $1.3550 could not be ruled out, he added.

YEN FALLS BROADLY

The dollar rose 0.3 percent to 77.03 yen, pulling away from a three-month low of 76.027 yen hit last week.

Stop-loss dollar buying, coupled with dollar buying by Japanese importers and offshore players, helped lift the greenback against the yen, traders said.

The yen fell broadly, with sterling rising 0.4 percent to 122.57 yen and the Australian dollar gaining 0.5 percent to 83.37 yen.

Traders said sentiment toward cross/yen pairs has improved after they breached some resistance levels recently.

With its gain the previous day, the euro rose above resistance at the bottom of the daily Ichimoku cloud. The next major resistance on the daily Ichimoku chart, a popular technical analysis tool, comes in at around 105.14 yen.

In a similar signal, sterling/yen initially poked above the bottom of the cloud late last week and now faces resistance at the top of the cloud at 123.09 yen.

A senior spot trader for a major Japanese bank in Tokyo said Japanese exporters are waiting on the sidelines eager to sell into euro/yen and Aussie/yen strength, adding that his sense is that the recent improvement in risk sentiment will lift the cross/yen pairs a little further.

Earlier on Wednesday, the yen showed little reaction to data showing that Japan's current account surplus shrank sharply to a 15-year low in 2011.

The decline in the current account surplus came as no surprise, as it was preceded by data in January that showed Japan posted its first trade deficit since 1980 last year. (Additional reporting by Cecile Lefort and Reuters FX analyst Krishna Kumar in Sydney, Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo; Editing by Kim Coghill)