Forex – Yen weaker vs dollar ahead of Bank of Japan monetary policy
Published Dec 19, 2013 07:07PM ET
Investing.com – The yen was slightly weaker against the dollar on Friday ahead of the Bank of Japan's latest review of monetary policy expected to stand pat on its monetary base policy target and keep the pace of asset purchases steady.
USD/JPY traded at 104.27, up 0.02%, ahead of the announcement expected around 1230 local time (0330 GMT) followed by a 1530 Tokyo time (0630 GMT) press conference by Governor Haruhiko Kuroda.
AUD/USD traded at 0.8859, down 0.08%. NZD/USD traded flat at 0.8190.
Overnight, the dollar advanced against most major currencies after the Federal Reserve said it was trimming its USD85 billion monthly bond-buying program by USD10 billion next month, though lackluster economic indicators watered down the greenback's gains.
Fed bond purchases tend to weaken the dollar by driving down long-term interest rates that send investors to assets like stocks to encourage investing and hiring.
The U.S. central bank reiterated that interest rates are likely to remain low even after the unemployment rate drops below 6.5%, the threshold at which the Fed has previously said it would start to consider rate increases.
Meanwhile, less-than-stellar economic indicators in the U.S. watered down the greenback's gains.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said that its manufacturing index jumped to 7.0 for December from November’s 6.5 reading, though analysts were expecting the index to rise to 10.0 this month.
A separate report showed that U.S. existing home sales declined 4.3% to a seasonally adjusted 4.90 million units in November from 5.12 million in October. Analysts were expecting U.S. existing home sales to fall 1.5% to 5.03 million units last month.
The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.01% at 80.78.
On Friday, the U.S. is to round up the week with revised data on third-quarter GDP.
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Written By: Investing.com
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