Tokyo - The euro dipped against the yen on Thursday, pulling away from a recent two-month high on selling by Japanese exporters, while the kiwi struggled after New Zealand's central bank raised interest rates but warned further hikes could be more gradual.
The New Zealand dollar fell sharply after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand signalled the pace of further interest rate hikes would be less than earlier thought. The kiwi fell to a low near $0.7205, from about $0.7280 before the announcement.
After staging a mild recovery, the New Zealand dollar was up 0.4% from late US trading on Wednesday at $0.7236..
"The neutral statement and revised market expectations for future rate decisions will help in taking upside pressure off the kiwi," Citi analyst Josh Williamson said.
The euro edged up 0.1% against the dollar to $1.3008, hovering near its 11-week high of $1.3047 hit on trading platform EBS earlier this week.
But the euro dipped 0.2% against the yen to
¥113.49, pulling away from its highest in more than two months of
¥114.74 struck on trading platform EBS on Wednesday.
A trader for a Japanese bank cited euro-selling by Japanese exporters before the month-end, adding that more offers were likely to emerge if the euro rebounds and rises towards
¥115.
"A lot of exporters are waiting at levels above
¥115," the trader said.
The dollar dipped 0.2% against the yen to 87.25, extending losses after data on Wednesday showed new US durable goods orders unexpectedly fell for a second straight month in June.
Still, the core measure of orders excluding aircraft and defence rose 0.6% in June, on top of an upwardly revised 4.6% jump in May, suggesting activity was not nearly as soft as the headline number suggested.
The dollar is likely to find support against the yen at levels around
¥86.80, near the dollar's intraday low hit on Monday and on Tuesday, said Teppei Ino, a technical analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
"There aren't strong reasons to bid up the yen beyond those levels at the moment, especially ahead of key US data on Friday," Ino said. US second-quarter gross domestic product data is due out on Friday.
A recent string of lacklustre US economic data has weighed on the greenback and led investors to cut short positions in the euro.
The single currency touched an 11-week high against the dollar earlier this week, helped by strong bank earnings and gains in European equities, following last week's favourable results of regulatory stress tests.
The dollar index was down 0.2% at 82.007, with near-term support around 81.44, a 50% retracement of the index's move from a low of 74.17 in November 2009 to a high near 88.71 in June.
The US Federal Reserve's Beige Book on Wednesday pointed to a less-than-booming recovery with sluggish housing markets and sales of costly items like new cars weakening.
- Reuters