By: DailyForex.com
During the Asian trading session, the U.S. Dollar moved higher against the safe haven Japanese Yen as investors’ speculate that Japanese importers could find the greenback attractive. Analysts believe that import buying will likely keep the Japanese Yen on the backfoot in the short term. Also providing support to the greenback are rising expectations that the U.S. central bank will begin scaling back its $85 billion in monthly asset purchases by next month even in spite of an unexpected rise in initial jobless benefit claims. Rising yields on U.S. Treasuries are also giving support to the greenback against the Yen, with 10-year yields holding near 2.903%, not far from Thursday’s 2-year peak of 2.936%.
The USD/JPY pair traded at 98.96 Yen, a gain of 0.3%, adding to Thursday’s 1% rise. The EUR/USD pair eased back to $1.3345, a loss of 0.1%, while the EUR/JPY traded 0.1% higher to 132.04 Yen adding to the better than 1% gain from yesterday. The U.S. Dollar Index traded at a session high of 81.719 .DXY and was recently 0.3% higher at 81.449 .DXY; investors use the U.S. Dollar Index to gauge the greenback’s strength relative to major peers which include among others the Euro and the Yen.