The U.S. dollar was seen mostly lower against its major rivals in Tuesday’s Asian session as currency traders are waiting for the conclusion of the Bank of Japan meeting today for possible news of additional monetary easing and a new inflation target. In Asian trading Tuesday, EUR/USD fell 0.02% to 1.3313 after data showed Germany’s producer price index fell in December. Germany’s producer price index fell fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of -0.3%, from -0.1% in November. Analysts expected the December reading to be unchanged. Germany is the Eurozone’s largest economy.
Traders are waiting for news out of a meeting in Brussels to see if finance ministers can move the European Stability Mechanism to direct funding to ailing banks rather than using the ESM to provide support to national governments that then decide how to disperse the aid.
Ahead of the aforementioned BoJ news, USD/JPY slipped 0.17% to 89.47. Traders seem to have already priced in news of additional asset buying and plans by the central bank to boost its inflation target to 2% from 1%, though no official announcements have been made as of this writing.
Elsewhere, sterling reclaimed some lost momentum against the greenback as GBP/USD added 0.05% to 1.5840. Earlier today, the U.K. released the first Rightmove Home Price Index of the month and that reading was 0.2%, the first positive reading since October 2012.
USD/CHF climbed 0.13% 0.9340 while USD/CAD slid 0.03% to 0.9928.
Ahead of Wednesday’s Australian inflation report, AUD/USD added 0.06% to 1.0524. Most economists expect the core reading of Australian inflation to come in at 0.7%, but if that reading is below the 0.5%-0.6% level, it could be the impetus the Reserve Bank of Australia needs to lower interest rates again.
The kiwi added some steam against the greenback as well as NZD/USDsurged 0.35% to 0.8391. The U.S. Dollar Index fell 0.01% to 80.12.
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