* Dollar hits 14-year low below 86.30 yen, dips 1 pct on day
* Dollar marks 1-½ year low against Swiss franc
* Japan's vice finmin: not considering intervention now
* Traders eye 85 in dlr/yen and even 79.75 all-time low
By Shinichi Saoshiro
TOKYO, Nov 26 (Reuters) - The dollar tumbled to a 14-year low against the yen on Thursday and struck a 1-½ year low on the Swiss franc, extending its broad slide on ultra-low U.S. interest rates, even as Japan signalled it had no plans to step in to stem the yen's rise.
Japanese deputy finance minister Yoshihiko Noda told Reuters recent currency moves reflected dollar weakness and Japan wasn't considering intervening now, and Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said the move was at the stage where they should watch.
Traders have been doubting Japanese authorities, once known for their heavy dollar-buying interventions, would step in at this stage to break the fall because the dollar's drop was against a range of currencies, and the yen's trade-weighted gains have not been so sharp. For graphic, click on:
http://r.reuters.com/dys63g
"It's dollar weakening, not yen strengthening, so there's very little Japanese authorities can do to stop the trend," said Koichi Haji, chief economist at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo.
"Even if they intervened in the market, the effect will be short-lived. Intervention will be extremely hard to justify."
The yen's climb against the dollar this year has been painful for the country's big exporters and has hurt their earnings, one of the main reasons why Japanese shares have lagged the gains in other major markets.
But Japan has stayed away from intervention for more than six years, and officials have repeatedly expressed a reluctance to do so.
Many officials around the world have expressed consternation and worry about the dollar's woes, and U.S. officials have tried but failed to reassure investors they believe in a stronger currency.
The dollar's drop came as short-term speculators and model-based funds sold to trip automatic sell orders, trying to take advantage of thinner market liquidity during the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
The dollar index, a barometer of its performance against six major currencies, also hit a 15-month low.
The greenback fell more than 1 percent on the day to 86.29 yen on trading platform EBS, its weakest level since 1995, with short-term investor selling outweighing dollar demand from Japanese importers, traders said.
Dealers were not ruling out a drop towards 85 yen in the near term and were even eyeing a retreat towards the all-time low of 79.75 yen touched in 1995, with little technical support standing in the way.
The yen also jumped on the crosses, with the euro dropping more than 1 percent to its lowest in a month at 129.98 yen and the Australian and New Zealand dollars falling 2 percent on the day.
Analysts said there were few reasons to buy the yen for itself but it was hard to stand in the way of dollar selling momentum, although selling was starting to look stretched.
The yen's real effective exchange rate -- a trade-weighted, inflation-adjusted measure of its broad value calculated once a month by the Bank of Japan -- was 117.8 in October, roughly 9 percent below an eight-year high of 128.9 hit in January.
"Short positions in the dollar are also beginning to mount up and since the move appears to be led by speculators, the dollar could bounce back sharply if the market can find an incentive to do so," said Koji Fukaya, senior currency strategist at Deutsche Securities.
The catalyst for the dollar's drop on Wednesday was the Federal Reserve's latest meeting minutes saying that the U.S. currency's fall has been orderly and interest rates will stay low for some time.
The dollar tumbled to just above 0.9900 Swiss francs on EBS, hitting its lowest since April 2008 before pulling back to 0.9950 francs.
The franc rose as high as 1.5012 per euro, its strongest since June, before edging back down to 1.5040 per euro, with the market nervous that any further strength might prompt the Swiss National Bank to intervene to curb its rise.
Although SNB Chairman Jean-Pierre Roth said on Tuesday the central bank was not targeting a specific level for the franc, analysts say intervention risk increases below 1.51 francs per euro.
The euro slipped 0.2 percent to $1.5105 after rising more than 1 percent on Wednesday and hitting a 15-month high of $1.5145 on EBS. (Additional reporting by Shinji Kitamura and Kaori Kaneko) ((shinichi.saoshiro@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: shinichi.saoshiro.reuters.com@reuters.net; +81-3-6441-1774)) ((If you have a query or comment on this story, send an email to news.feedback.asia@thomsonreuters.com))