The dollar was down 0.2 percent against a basket of currencies, on Monday, February 12, iiiiiiiiiiiiiii erasing some of the gains last week when the dollar enjoyed its best weekly performance since 2016.
Against the yen, the dollar also eased but it paused above a five-month low.
The dollar fell 0.1 percent to 108.69 yen, remaining above Friday’s trough of 108.05 yen, its lowest level since Sept. 11. The dollar last week fell nearly 1.3 percent against the yen.
The yen tends to attract demand in times of market stress as the currency is backed by Japan’s current account surplus, which offers it more resilience than currencies of deficit-running countries.
Reports late last week that the Japanese government had decided to nominate Haruhiko Kuroda for a rare second term as Bank of Japan governor when his current one expires in April, signalling the BOJ’s ultra-loose monetary policy will remain in place, were seen as a factor that could potentially weigh on the yen and temper its gains.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is to present Kuroda’s nomination to parliament later this month, a person briefed on the matter said on Saturday.
Satoshi Okagawa, senior global markets analyst for Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in Singapore, said on Monday: “It’s not as if the dollar is going to rise sharply against the yen in the next couple of days just because Kuroda is set to be re-appointed”.
“But once the market settles down, focus will probably return to differences in monetary policy… and that could give the dollar an upward bias against the yen,” he said.
