* Euro retreats to one-week low versus U.S. dollar
* Investors await FOMC minutes for insight into easing
* Dollar hovers around 82 yen, near 15-year lows (Adds quote, detail, changes byline, changes dateline, previous LONDON)
By Wanfeng Zhou
NEW YORK, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar edged higher against the euro on Tuesday on a short-covering bounce as investors awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve's latest meeting for clues on the central bank's stance toward purchasing more assets to stimulate the economy.
The dollar has sold off sharply in recent weeks, pushing the euro as high as $1.4030, as expectations heightened that the Federal Reserve would pump more cheap money in the economy as early as next month.
But dollar selling has eased since late last week after the euro failed to hold above the $1.40 area, prompting investors to get out of some of their massive short positions in the greenback.
"We had a very dramatic move, with session after session of euro hitting new highs," said Camilla Sutton, senior currency strategist at Scotia Capital in Toronto. "We will be in for a small period of rest here before it has a catalyst to push it higher still."
Investors also covered stretched short positions in the dollar as they scaled back some of their more aggressive QE expectations. Fed minutes are scheduled to be released at 2 p.m.. (1800 GMT)
A Reuters poll of U.S. primary dealers conducted last week forecast a new round of quantitative easing would range between $500 billion and $1.5 trillion, with market players also keen to assess whether the Fed will adopt a "drip-feed" or "shock-and-awe" approach.
"I think it has the opportunity to disappoint people. It's going to focus on incremental changes in policy," said Mark McCormick, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York.
"A lot of people are starting to get a little bit concerned. We saw that consolidation starting to take place on Friday and it seems to have rolled over into today as well," he added.
The euro fell as low as $1.3775 on trading platform EBS, its lowest level since Oct. 5 and a further pull-back from a more than eight-month high of $1.4030 hit last week.
The euro last traded down 0.3 percent at $1.3827, with traders highlighting a large option expiry at $1.3800 which could serve to contain the euro into the 1400 GMT option cut-off.
The ICE Futures U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback versus a basket of six currencies, rose 0.3 percent to 77.651, after hitting a nine-month low of 76.906 last week.
YEN NEAR 15-YEAR HIGHS
The dollar dipped against the yen, pressured by falling U.S. Treasury yields.
The dollar fell 0.3 percent to 81.86 yen, not far from a 15-year low of 81.37 struck on Monday. Most market players expect pressure to remain on the dollar/yen pair, with a test of 80 yen and the record trough of 79.75 yen still in sight.
Analysts said the risk of another round of intervention to weaken the yen seemed to have increased after Japan weathered the flurry of weekend G7 and IMF meetings last weekend with hardly any criticism of its recent yen sales.
Falling stock prices also helped boost risk aversion and weighed on yen crosses.
The euro fell 0.6 percent to 113.23 yen and the Australian dollar was also down 0.4 percent at 80.40 yen.
(Additional reporting by Tamawa Desai in London) (Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)