The U.S. dollar was broadly steady on Tuesday while the yen trimmed earlier losses as Japanese officials issued fresh warnings following two rounds of suspected dollar-selling intervention last week.
The Australian dollar fell from a near two-month high against its U.S. counterpart after the Reserve Bank of Australia refrained from ramping up hawkish signals, as some traders had anticipated.
The U.S. dollar index - which measures the currency against six major peers, including the yen, sterling and euro - was up less than 0.1% at 105.23, after dipping as low as 104.52 on Friday.
The index is up nearly 4% this year but fell almost 1% last week after the Federal Reserve ruled out further rate hikes and there were signs of a softening U.S. labour market.
The U.S. dollar was last up just 0.1% to 154.06 yen, having earlier risen as high as 154.60.
On Friday, it sank as low as 151.86 yen for the first time since April 10, as the soft U.S. jobs data fed losses following Bank of Japan data that suggested official intervention could have amounted to some 9 trillion yen ($58 billion).
Japan's finance ministry has refrained from commenting on whether it was behind the dollar selling, but top currency diplomat Masato Kanda repeated on Tuesday that the government "will continue to take the same firm approach" to disorderly yen moves.
The Aussie fell after the RBA's rate decision, where rates were kept unchanged, but the central bank stopped short of reinstating a tightening bias that some had expected as inflation failed to cool by as much as forecast.
In her press conference after the central bank's widely-expected decision, governor Michele Bullock said the board believes monetary policy is at the right level to return inflation to target. The RBA hopes the economy won't have to face additional rate hikes, Bullock added.
The Australian dollar was last down 0.5% at $0.6593, retreating from Friday's high of $0.6650, a level previously seen on March 8.
The euro eased 0.1% to $1.0758 and sterling fell 0.2% to $1.2534 before the Bank of England's policy announcement on Thursday.
Source : Reuters
