By: Hillel Fuld
The yen revolved around a 15-year peak versus the USD on Tuesday after the Bank of Japan's easing steps the previous day failed to intimidate investors from betting on it rising even more.
With mounting U.S. economic concerns seen keeping investors shunning risk assets such as high-yielding currencies, the market is likely to push up the low-yielding JPY, testing the willingness of Japanese authorities to step in.
"If share prices fail to rise, that could lead to selling in the cross yen, which would put pressure on the dollar/yen," said Nobuhiko Akai, senior manager of forex trading at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
"The dollar/yen might test the previous low (of 83.58 hit last week) by the end of this week," Akai said.
The USD changed hands at 84.58 JPY about a full yen above the 15-year low of 83.58 hit last week. It declined 0.7 percent on Monday as investors took profits after the Bank of Japan announced its decision to expand a cheap funding initiative.
The yen showed no response to a series of Japanese data, including better-than-expected readings in industrial output and retail sales.
As the USD JPY has had a strong correlation with the yield gap between the United States and Japan in recent months, a sharp decline in U.S Treasuries on Monday also affected the dollar negatively.
U.S. Treasuries prices jumped on Monday, with 30-year bond prices increasing two full points, recovering from a sharp sell-off on Friday.
The EUR/JPY fell 0.2 percent to 106.80 yen after having fallen nearly 2 yen on Monday.
Fresh selling in the EUR against the Swiss franc on Tuesday pushed the pair to a record low of 1.2959 francs, as investors put funds to what is gernally considered a safe-haven currency.
Against the dollar, the euro fell 0.2 percent to $1.2637, not far from a low of $1.2588 hit a week ago.