The dollar was moderately higher against the yen in Asia trade Monday, helped by a bout of buying early in the session that ultimately failed to gather wider momentum.
The dollar USDJPY, +0.34% was at ¥119.62, compared with ¥119.25 late Friday in New York.
Earlier in the session, the greenback was hovering around ¥119.40, continuing the greenback’s weak tone from late Friday when U.S. consumer confidence and industrial production data came in below expectations.
A relatively large amount of the dollar buying orders from Japanese corporate investors then pushed the dollar up to as high as ¥119.76.
“It seems there were some big buyers,” probably Japanese importers among others, said a Japanese bank dealer. But the buying failed to trigger a move wider in scope. “I don’t feel the dollar-yen pair has its own catalyst for a move,” the dealer said.
“Looking ahead, the dollar will likely find it top heavy when it comes to the ¥120 mark, until the U.S. economy clearly shows signs of stepping out of an economic slowdown, said FPG Securities chief executive Koji Fukaya in a report.
The currency market is now awaiting indicators such as U.S. residential construction data Tuesday and the release of Federal Open Market Committee minutes Wednesday.
Investors are also keeping an eye on Japanese gross domestic product figures for January-March on Wednesday and a Bank of Japan policy setting meeting set to conclude Friday.
The currency market shrugged off Japan’s machinery orders, considered a leading indicator for private capital outlays. The government said Japan’s core machinery orders, excluding often volatile orders for electric power companies and ships, rose 2.9% in March from the previous month, better than a 1.8% increase expected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal and the Nikkei.
In other trading pairs, the euro EURUSD, -0.3145% was lower at $1.1441 from $1.1450. The common currency EURJPY, -0.02% was at ¥136.87 from ¥136.69.
The WSJ Dollar Index BUXX, +0.28% , a measure of the dollar against a basket of major currencies, was up 0.16% at 84.24.
