Investing.com - The dollar was higher against the yen on Thursday, boosted by the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s December policy meeting, as investors awaited the latest U.S. jobs report, due out on Friday. USD/JPY rose to session highs of 105.02 and was last up 0.16% to 105.01, not far from the five year highs of 105.43 struck last Thursday. Wednesday’s minutes of the Fed’s December meeting showed that the bank cited a stronger labor market in its decision to cut its asset purchase program by USD10 billion, reducing it to USD75 billion-a-month. The minutes also showed that officials were keen to stress that further reductions were not on a “preset course� and would be undertaken in “measured� steps. The minutes came on the heels of a report showing that the U.S. private sector added the largest number of jobs since November 2012 last month. ADP nonfarm payrolls rose by 238,000 in December, easily surpassing expectations for an increase of 200,000. The dollar was slightly lower against the euro, with EUR/USD rising 0.28% to 1.3614 ahead of the European Central Bank’s first policy meeting of the year later in the session. The dollar was slightly lower against the pound, with GBP/USD edging up 0.08% to 1.6461 and was down against the Swiss franc, with USD/CHF falling 0.31% to 0.9082. Elsewhere, AUD/USD was down 0.24% to 0.8877 and NZD/USD dipped 0.02% to trade at 0.8262. Elsewhere, the U.S. dollar was trading close to three-and-a-half year highs against the Canadian dollar, with USD/CAD climbing 0.16% to 1.0837. The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.15% to 81.09.

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