By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) -- The dollar lost more ground against the Japanese yen on Tuesday, after the Bank of Japan held its key rate steady and didn’t announce further policy easing.
The dollar USDJPY +0.47% bought 82.16 yen, compared with ÂĄ82.26 in late North American trading on Tuesday.
The move came after the Bank of Japan unanimously decided to keep its key overnight call rate at 0% to 0.1%.
“Overseas economies still have not emerged from a deceleration phase on the whole, but some improvement has recently been observed in the U.S. economy and the sluggish European economy has stopped deteriorating,” the central bank said alongside the decision.
Japan is expected to gradually emerge from current flat growth to return to a path of moderate recovery, the bank said.
It will increase the amount of loans available through its growth-supporting facility by 2 trillion yen ($24.35 billion), bringing the size of the program to 5.5 trillion yen.
The dollar declined against the yen on Monday as well, after hitting a 10-month high against the Japanese currency on Friday following strong U.S. jobs numbers.
The yen has fallen sharply against the dollar this year, after the Bank of Japan announced more asset buying and an inflation target.
The ICE dollar index DXY +0.19% , which measures the greenback against a basket of six currencies, traded at 79.761,down from 79.869 in late North American trading on Monday.
The euro EURUSD -0.26% reached $1.3172 from $1.3153 in late trading Monday, while the British pound GBPUSD +0.08% traded at $1.5651, versus $1.5636.
