Investing.com - The dollar edged higher against the other major currencies on Wednesday, pulling away from a 16-month trough as the greenback recovered from the Federal Reserve’s most recent policy statement and investors eyed the release of private sector U.S. jobs data due later in the day.
USD/JPY rose 0.16% to 106.79 off Tuesday’s 18-month low of 105.55.
The greenback continued to recover from sharp losses posted after the Fed’s decided last week to leave interest rates unchanged and indicated that any future interest rate hikes would be data dependent.
EUR/USD slipped 0.12% to 1.1483, pulling away from the previous session’s nine-month high of 1.1614.
Earlier Wednesday, research group Markit said its euro zone services purchasing managers’ index slipped to 53.1 in April from 53.2 the previous month, confounding expectations for an unchanged reading.
The dollar was higher against the pound and the Swiss franc, with GBP/USD down 0.45% at 1.4468 and with USD/CHF adding 0.21% to 0.9562.
Sterling weakened after Markit said its U.K. construction PMI fell to 52.0 last month from March’s reading of 54.2. That was its slowest pace since June 2013. Economists had expected the index to inch down to 54.0 in March.
The Australian and New Zealand dollars were weaker, with AUD/USD down 0.16% at 0.7472 and with NZD/USD declining 0.48% to 0.0.6882.
Statistics New Zealand reported on Wednesday that the unemployment rate rose to 5.7% in the first quarter from 5.3% in the three months to December, compared to expectations for an uptick to 5.5%.
The report also showed that the number of employed people rose by 1.2% in the last quarter, beating expectations for a 0.7% gain and following an increase of 0.9% in the third quarter of 2015.
Elsewhere, USD/CAD gained 0.32% to 1.2767, the highest since April 22.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.20% at 93.21, off the previous session’s 16-month trough of 91.89.