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Laying out his agenda for this weekend's G20 meetings in South Korea , Geithner said in a Wall Street Journal interview he would seek numerical targets for "sustainable" trade surpluses and deficits as a way to help rebalance the global economy.

He is hoping that by persuading major emerging and advanced economies to cooperate on foreign exchange policies, he can coax China into allowing the value of its yuan to rise further.

"Right now, there is no established sense of what's fair," Geithner told the Journal.

"We would like countries to move toward a set of norms on exchange rate policy," he added.

Geithner also sought to provide some reassurances that the United States is not deliberately trying to devalue its dollar.

The Journal said that in the interview he suggested that he saw little reason for the dollar to sink further against the euro and the yen, saying that these "major currencies" were "roughly in alignment now."

The comments briefly lifted the dollar in Asian trade, pushing it up to 81.84 yen from about 81 yen. It settled back down to 81.15, near a 15-year low.

Geithner on Monday in California vowed that the United States would not engage in dollar devaluation, saying "No country around the world can devalue its way to prosperity."

CURRENCY TAKES CENTER STAGE

While past G20 meetings avoided direct confrontation on thorny exchange rate issues, the meetings starting on Friday in Gyeongju are expected to address the problem head-on. The dollar's protracted slide and China's tightly controlled trading band for the yuan have put upward pressure on other emerging market currencies that are allowed to move more freely.

Actions by several countries, including Brazil this week, to stem the rise of their currencies and protect their exporters, has fueled talk of a "currency war."

While some criticism has been leveled at U.S. Federal Reserve monetary easing for weakening the dollar, U.S. officials point to China's determination to prevent its yuan from rising as the main source of tensions.

"When large economies with undervalued exchange rates act to keep their currencies from appreciating, that compels other countries to do the same, setting off a dynamic of competitive nonappreciation," a senior Treasury official told a news briefing on Wednesday, referring to China.

Geithner repeated his view that China's yuan is significantly undervalued, but if the pace of appreciation since September were sustained, it would correct the undervaluation over time.

In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Geithner suggested that he saw no need for the dollar to sink further against the euro and the yen, causing the dollar to spike half a yen and climb rapidly against the euro.

The dollar rose as far as 81.84 yen from about 81.00 yen before Geithner's comments came out while the euro fell 0.6 percent in a matter of minutes as the market, taking the comments to imply that the dollar did not need to fall further, covered dollar short positions.

By late morning, however, it pared some of its early gains, and the dollar index .DXY against a basket of major currencies was up 0.2 percent.

The drop in the yen, which is still near 15-year highs against the U.S. currency, briefly pulled Japan's benchmark Nikkei .N225 out of negative territory before slipping back 0.3 percent.

"The Nikkei rebounded strongly after the dollar jumped against the yen on Geithner's comments," said Takashi Ohba, senior strategist at Okasan Securities.

"This could have prompted active short-covering by foreign players who were detected selling Nikkei futures heavily the previous day."

The MSCI index of Asia shares outside of Japan also weakened slightly, shrugging off overnight gains on Wall Street as traders took profits after a strong run-up in September and early October.

Talk of competitive currency depreciation has flared ahead of a G20 finance ministers meeting this week and a G20 summit next month, as developed countries keep monetary policy extremely easy to shore up sluggish growth and as capital flows in search of better yields push up currencies in faster growing emerging economies.

"It's become a bit difficult to test the dollar's downside for now," said Katsunori Kitakura, chief dealer at Chuo Mitsui Trust Bank.

"It seems as if the G7 has formed a united front ahead of the G20 meeting, as he's saying he's mainly focusing on emerging economies when it comes to currencies."

CHINA GROWTH COOLS A BIT BUT STILL ROBUST

The Shanghai stock market .SSEC briefly turned positive after data showed China's economic growth ebbed in the third quarter and inflation edged just a touch higher. But Shanghai quickly surrendered the gains and was down 1.3 percent by midday, helping pull Hong Kong shares .HSI lower.

The Chinese data was broadly in line with forecasts, suggesting that a surprise interest rate rise from this week may be enough for now, but markets remain wary of further policy tightening by the central bank.

Economic growth slowed to 9.6 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, down from 10.3 percent in the second quarter. Analysts had expected a 9.5 percent pace.

The company also raised its full-year revenue and profit forecast and its shares rose 7.3 percent in after-hours trading.

EBay, which began as an online auction house, but sees most of its sales at fixed prices, is in the latter half of a three-year turnaround focused on its marketplaces unit.

The company competes with Amazon.com Inc and a host of e-commerce retailers, all of whom are hoping to appeal to cost-conscious shoppers still pressured by high unemployment and a sluggish U.S. economy.

The company, which also owns PayPal, expects fourth-quarter revenue of $2.39 billion to $2.49 billion, with adjusted earnings per share of 45 cents to 48 cents.

That is above the 44 cents per share on revenue of $2.4 billion that analysts have been expecting, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"This is good across all their businesses," said UBS analyst Brian Pitz, adding the results and forecast would improve lukewarm investor sentiment toward eBay. "They're starting to see traction with marketplaces and they expect pretty decent results in the fourth quarter."

For the full year, eBay expects revenues to range between $9.05 billion to $9.15 billion on adjusted earnings of $1.67 to $1.70 per share.

That was above an earlier revenue range of $8.8 billion to $9.0 billion on adjusted earnings per share of $1.60 to $1.65.

"With our U.S. business stabilized, we are making the adjustments necessary to capitalize on the pricing and search changes made earlier this year and we are continuing to innovate around the user experience," Chief Executive John Donahoe told analysts on a call.

EBay has tried to simplify its process for listing items and lowered upfront fees to encourage more sellers, while focusing on safety measures to protect buyers.

Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan said the marketplaces division should have a "strong performance" in Europe and a "stable performance" in the United States over the holiday season.

The November and December holiday season is a key selling period for e-commerce players and their brick-and-mortar rivals. Market research firm comScore said last week that holiday online spending could rise between 7 percent and 9 percent this season.

Investors are awaiting a holiday forecast from Amazon.com when it reports third-quarter results on Thursday. Amazon is generally expected to dominate e-commerce holiday sales as it fosters shopper loyalty and cuts prices.

Analysts, on average, expect Amazon to post a 36 percent gain in 2010 revenue, compared with the 5 percent eBay expects at its high end.