Investing.com - The U.S. dollar traded lower against the Japanese yen during Thursday’s Asian session as traders await the conclusion of the Bank of Japan’s two-day policy meeting.
In Asian trading Thursday, USD/JPY fell 0.29% to 99.42. The pair was likely to find resistance at 101.53, the high from July 7, and support at 99.30.
Earlier Thursday, data showed Japan's core machinery orders rose 10.5% in May following an 8.8% decrease in April. The May reading easily topped economists’ expectations for a 1.3% increase.
That data point could be a sign that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to jolt the world’s third-largest economy are taking shape, perhaps indicating that USD/JPY trading higher Thursday is more the result of dollar weakness than yen strength.
Dollar weakness is a believable scenario as the greenback traded lower against nearly all of its major rivals.
After the close U.S. markets, Bernanke delivered comments that sent U.S. stock futures and commodities soaring while sending the U.S. Dollar Index plunging. In those remarks, Bernanke said the Fed’s accommodative monetary policy is needed over the near-term, quelling speculation that the central bank could begin tapering its USD85 billion-per-month easing program as soon as September.
While data from the U.S. labor market, manufacturing sector, housing industry and other sectors of the economy have come in better than expected recently, Bernanke noted the U.S. unemployment rate of 7.6% may belie the job market’s actual strength, indicating that last week’s stronger-than-expected June jobs report did not factor into his comments.
Regarding BoJ, most traders do not expect any alternations to the central bank’s own easing regime following this meeting, but that possibility has not been ruled out for later this year.
Elsewhere, AUD/JPY rose 0.45% to 91.85 while NZD/JPY climbed 0.88% to 78.80.