AFP, Tokyo :
The euro dipped in Asia on Wednesday as investors looked to comments from European Central Bank officials later in the day following the ECB’s aggressive stimulus moves to combat the threat of deflation in the eurozone.
In Tokyo afternoon trading, the European single currency slipped to $1.3537, compared with $1.3545 in US trade, while it also weakened to 138.45 yen against 138.64 yen.
The dollar slipped to 102.27 yen from 102.35 yen on Tuesday in New York.
“Given the extremely light data calendar today, we expect range-trading,” Credit Agricole said.
“The market will await the ECB officials to shed light on the details of the easing package in their speeches today.”
Last week, ECB policymakers launched unprecedented easing measures to bolster fragile eurozone growth, saying it would cut its deposit rate to negative territory.
This means banks will be charged for leaving funds at the ECB in the hope they might lend to businesses and consumers instead.
The bank also slashed its lending rate to a record low of 0.15 percent from 0.25 percent and said hundreds of billions of euros would be made available in cheap loans to banks as long as they lent more to the private sector.
Bank chief Mario Draghi said after the meeting that policymakers would also be open to possible asset purchases, or quantitative easing, similar to that undertaken in the United States and Japan.
“It is very likely that selling pressure on the euro will intensify further,” Junichi Ishikawa, market analyst at IG Securities, told Dow Jones Newswires.
The dollar faced selling pressure against the yen, despite higher US treasury yields and upbeat jobs data last week that suggested the world’s number one economy was back on track.
Investors will be looking to May US retail sales figures, due Thursday, as well as the Bank of Japan’s two-day policy- making meeting, which wraps up on Friday.
In other trading, the dollar rose to 43.72 Philippine pesos from 43.67 pesos, and to 59.31 Indian rupees from 59.28 rupees.
The greenback weakened to 11,802.50 Indonesian rupiah from 11,807.50, to 32.47 Thai baht from 32.48 baht, to Sg$1.2500 from Sg$1.2507, and to 1,016.16 South Korean won from 1,017.25 won.
It was unchanged at Tw$29.99.
