Investing.com - The dollar firmed against the yen on Tuesday amid news reports that Japan may call a snap election next month in an effort for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to push through his reforms.
In U.S. trading, USD/JPY was up 0.79% at 115.75, up from a session low of 114.64 and off a high of 116.10.
The pair was expected to test support at 113.84, Monday's low, and resistance at 116.10, the session high.
The yen fell as speculation that Japan’s government may postpone a planned sales tax increase boosted risk appetite and fueled strong gains in Asian equities overnight, curbing safe haven demand for the currency.
Added talk that Shinzo Abe may call a snap election in December to shore up support and push through his reforms added to the yen's decline.
Elsewhere, data on Tuesday revealed that Japan posted an unexpectedly large current account surplus of ¥963 billion in September, boosted by a weaker yen.
Investors continued to digest last week's lackluster U.S. jobs report.
The dollar softened on Friday after the Department of Labor reported that the U.S. economy added 214,000 jobs in October, missing expectations for an increase of 231,000.
The U.S. unemployment rate ticked down to a six-year low of 5.8% from 5.9% in September.
While not overwhelmingly disappointing, the less-than-stellar report gave investors room to sell the greenback for profits and take time to rethink when the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates next year.
This week, investors snapped up fresh greenback positions on sentiments that the jobs report was strong enough to keep the Fed on track to hike interest rates some time in 2015 considering that the economy continues to add over 200,000 jobs a month save an anomaly here or there.
Separately, the yen was down against the euro and down against the pound, with EUR/JPY up 1.02% at 144.07, and GBP/JPY trading up 1.09% at 183.90.
On Wednesday, Japan is to publish data on tertiary industry activity.