The dollar weakened below ¥109.50 in Tokyo trading Wednesday, amid a growing wait-and-see mood ahead of key events abroad.
At 5 p.m., the dollar stood at ¥109.45, down from ¥109.52 at the same time Tuesday. The euro was at $1.2183, up from $1.2172, and at ¥133.34, up from ¥133.31.
Following a drop below ¥109.30 in overseas trading in response to a plunge in U.S. long-term interest rates brought about by widespread websites outages, the dollar traded in ¥109.40 terrain in the morning.
The greenback fell close to ¥109.30 late in the afternoon on selling spurred by the British pound’s appreciation in the wake of a hawkish comment by a British monetary policymaker. But the U.S. currency soon recouped the loss vis-a-vis the yen.
Trading was largely quiet, with many players sitting on the fences to wait for the U.S. consumer price index for May, the European Central Bank’s policy-setting meeting and a 10-year U.S. Treasury note auction, traders said.
The CPI, due out Thursday, keeps attracting market attention because it may provide a clue to the direction of U.S. monetary policy.
But given the fact that a strong CPI reading has been factored in to some extent and that U.S. long-term rates have been declining, it is rather likely that the result of the 10-year note auction later on Wednesday will have a marked impact on the dollar-yen pair, a Japanese bank official said.
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