By Hideyuki Sano
TOKYO (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar was subdued on Tuesday as investors looked to U.S. inflation data due later in the week after softer-than-expected jobs data quelled expectations of an early tapering in the Federal Reserve’s stimulus.
The euro fetched $1.21915, bouncing back from its three-week low of $1.2104 set on Friday while the dollar eased to 109.26 yen, losing steam after having hit a two-month high of 110.325 late last week.
The dollar’s index against a basket of six major currencies stood at 90.021, not far from 89.533, a 4 1/2-month low touched late last month.
“It’s not that the payrolls numbers were weak. But because so much expectation had been build up in advance, the dollar suffered a bit of setback,” said Shinichiro Kadota, senior currency strategist at Barclays.
Friday’s jobs data, which showed U.S. non-farm payrolls increasing by 559,000 in May, fell 90,000 jobs short of expectations.
The data helped to pin down U.S. bond yields near their recent lows, weighing on the dollar, while investors now looked to consumer price data on Thursday for fresh direction.
Many investors now expect the Fed to unveil a plan to reduce its bond purchase later this year, and actual tapering to start early next year.
The British pound hardly budged at $1.4169 while the Australian dollar was unchanged at $0.7753, both stuck in ranges seen over the past couple of months.
With recent trading ranges tight, implied volatilities on both currencies have dropped to their lowest levels since early 2020, before markets were pummelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elsewhere, the Mexican peso held firm at 19.832 to the U.S. dollar, near its highest level since late January, after midterm elections confirmed President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s MORENA party as the strongest force in the country, but with a reduced majority.
In contrast, the Peruvian sol tumbled to an all-time low of 3.9367 per dollar as socialist Pedro Castillo edged ahead of right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori in the country’s presidential election vote.
Cryptocurrencies were also little moved. Bitcoin traded flat at $33,564, while ether stood at $2,581.
(Reporting by Hideyuki Sano; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)
