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U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner affirmed the government's desire for a strong dollar for the first time since February, providing a reason for dealers to take profits on other currencies' strength in the run up to weekend meetings of G20 finance ministers.

However, deep-seated concerns remained among global policymakers that the Federal Reserve's path to quantitative easing will keep the dollar weak and maintain sharp upward pressure on the currencies of other economies, especially in the emerging markets.

That means the popular trade of selling dollars to buy emerging market equities and commodities is still in play.

"The reasons for the dollar being weaker, principally that move toward QE, are still very valid, so any pullbacks are not going to be enormous," said Gregg Gibbs, currency strategist with Royal Bank of Scotland in Sydney.

The euro was at $1.3935, down slightly from late in New York on Monday. The euro has been unable to maintain a foothold above $1.40 in October, which may cause frustrated traders to turn tail and sell it off to $1.3775 over the next few days.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures performance against a basket of six other major currencies, was up 0.1 percent, though still not far from a 2010 low hit last Friday.

STOCK EXCHANGES REFLECT MIXED SENTIMENT

Stock exchanges in Asia reflected mixed sentiment, with gains in Japan and Australia and declines in tech-heavy South Korea and Taiwan.

Japan's Nikkei share average rose 0.5 percent .N225, extending a gain since September to 6.9 percent, which was below the 9.7 percent returns from the U.S. S&P 500 index .SPX but above the 3.1 percent from the FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3.

The MSCI index of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was largely unchanged on the day, with weakness in the technology sector offset by some gains in other segments.

Tech was under pressure after Apple Inc (AAPL.O) posted disappointing sales of its iPad tablet computer, drawing a pointed response from the company's chief executive Steve Jobs, who lashed out at competitors.

With the dollar at bay, gold also was under wraps, holding at $1,369.45 an ounce, well below the all-time high of $1,387.10 an ounce hit last Thursday.

Gold is still in a bullish trend but in the near term risks a profit-taking driven pullback to $1.361 an ounce.

Copper traders were not waiting for the dollar down-trend to resume before pushing up the base metal higher. Three-month copper traded on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.4 percent on the day to $8,492 a ton, the highest since July 2008.

(Additional reporting by Charlotte Cooper in TOKYO, Reuters FX Analyst Krishna Kumar in SYDNEY and Reuters Market Analyst Wang Tao in SINGAPORE; Editing by Ron Popeski)

Jobs, who has not addressed investors on an earnings call for two years, lashed out at competitors Google Inc and Research in Motion and dismissed the smaller tablets made by rivals such including Samsung and Dell.

"The current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival," Jobs told analysts on the conference call. "Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small."

Shares of Apple -- the second-largest corporation on the Standard & Poor's 500 index, after Exxon Mobil -- slid 6 percent in after-hours trading, which would be their biggest single-day loss since 2008.

Supply and production bottlenecks kept iPads, which have a 9.7-inch touch screen, from store shelves and buyers waiting weeks sometimes for their gadget. The company sold 4.19 million iPads in the fiscal fourth quarter.

"A little bit disappointing there. Street was expecting closer to 5 million units. The problem is supply, they can't make enough of them," said Gleacher & Co analyst Brian Marshall.

Analysts said sales should ramp up in the holiday quarter as Apple resolves supply hitches.

Gross margins fell short of target as iPads, whose profit margin is lower than it is for iPhones, made up a larger proportion of Apple's sales. Investors had expected more from a company that had smashed Wall Street's targets in each of the past eight quarters.

Gross margins came to 36.9 percent, below Wall Street's average forecast of 38.2 percent, despite better-than-expected components costs in the period.

"The one surprise is on the margin side. Everything else is pretty spectacular," said Gartner analyst Van Baker.

There was no disappointment in the iPhone, however, whose surging sales showed little impact from a PR debacle last summer over the device's antenna.

Apple sold 14.1 million of the smartphones, a gain of 91 percent and better than Wall Street had expected. The company said demand is still outstripping supply, with the iPhone now available in 89 countries.

Mac sales surged 27 percent to 3.9 million, at the high end of analysts' estimates. Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the strong Mac performance was evidence that the iPad was not cannibalizing sales.

SURVEYING THE COMPETITION

Jobs noted that Apple's iPhone outsold RIM's BlackBerry in its most recent quarter. "I don't see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future," Jobs said.

"It is not going to happen in this country." Geithner told Silicon Valley business leaders of devaluing the dollar.

Geithner broke his silence on the dollar's protracted slide ahead of this weekend's meeting of finance leaders from the Group of 20 wealthy and emerging nations in South Korea, where rising tensions over Chinese and U.S. currency valuations are expected to take center stage.

"It is very important for people to understand that the United States of America and no country around the world can devalue its way to prosperity, to (be) competitive," Geithner added. "It is not a viable, feasible strategy and we will not engage in it."

Answering audience questions before the Commonwealth Club of California in Palo Alto, he said the United States needed to "work hard to preserve confidence in the strong dollar."

Geithner, normally reluctant to publicly discuss currency and market movements, has not uttered the so-called "strong dollar mantra" -- a refrain he helped create at Treasury in the 1990s -- since February.

On Friday, the dollar index hit a 10-month low against a basket of major currencies, while the greenback has been plumbing fresh 15-year lows against Japan's yen .

Many emerging market countries are complaining that Fed money creation is weakening the dollar, and causing more funds to flow into their markets, pushing up their currencies.

Talk of a "currency war" has persisted as countries take action to keep from losing export competitiveness.

Brazil on Monday moved to cool a strong rally in its currency by raising taxes for foreigners buying local bonds and trading in foreign exchange derivatives.

Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the move was aimed at reducing foreign investment into Brazil, and he urged other countries to take coordinated action against the weak dollar.

Argentina's Minister of Economy and Public Finance Amado Boudou on Monday called on developed nations to focus on creating jobs rather than actions that weaken their currencies, saying a "true currency war" was underway.

U.S. POINTS TO CHINA

The G20 finance ministers and central bank governors at the meetings in Gyeongju, South Korea are expected to tackle head-on the disparities in currency policies that are distorting capital flows in the hopes of achieving a more coordinated approach.

But U.S. officials have put most of the blame on China's highly restrictive exchange rate regime, which until recently had kept the yuan largely pegged to the dollar. The United States is pressuring China to allow the value of its yuan to rise to take some pressure off capital flows and to rebalance its economy away from exports.

Apple shares fell 7 percent in extended trading.

Gross margins in the fiscal fourth quarter came to 36.9 percent, a tad below Wall Street's average forecast of 38.2 percent.

Apple sold 4.2 million iPads in its second quarter on the market, below Wall Street's expectations.

Some analysts had projected shipments of closer to or even more than 5 million for the tablet computer launched only in April, but others had warned that supply constraints had held back sales.

The company on Monday reported a net profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 a share, in the fiscal fourth-quarter ended September 25, up from $2.53 billion, or $2.77 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

That was better than the average analyst estimate of $4.08 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"It's an incredible phenomenon -- not only did they beat our heightened expectations but they've blown past forecasts, and it's primarily driven by the iPhone," said BGC's Colin Gillis.

Revenue surged 67 percent to $20.3 billion, ahead of Wall Street's target of $18.9 billion.

The company forecast current-quarter earnings of $4.80 a share on revenue of $23 billion.

Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple closed at $318.00 on Nasdaq and were halted in after-hours trading.

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway; Editing by Richard Chang)