The dollar rallied against other major Asian currencies on Friday morning. Japan’s inflation data were in focus on Friday as investors looked for cues for the country’s monetary policy.
The U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies last stood at 89.73, up 0.10% at 11:10PM ET (03:10 GMT).
The dollar rose alongside with the 10-year U.S. treasury yield that climbed to 2.9%, nearing mid-February high. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump made no new fresh demands on trade at his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this week.
The USD/JPY pair gained 0.28% to 107.65. Japan’s March national CPI figures came in at 0.9%, down from the previous 1.0%. The CPI measures the change in the price of goods and services from the perspective of the consumer and serves as a key way to measure changes in purchasing trends and inflation.
The Bank of Japan’s 2% inflation target begins to look grim as inflation continues to droop in the Japanese economy. Despite the limited impact of the monetary easing policy, Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the Bank has no plans to drop the policy.
In China, The People’s Bank of China set the fix rate of yuan against the dollar at 6.2897 versus the previous day’s 6.2832. The USD/CNY pair edged 0.11% to trade at 2858.
In Australia, the AUD/USD pair was down 0.25% to trade at 0.7710. Australia is due to release its CPI data next Tuesday.
Elsewhere,the Hong Kong Monetary Authority bought a total of $6.5 billion in defense of the local dollar’s peg to the greenback in the past week, a move that will drain about 30% of the aggregate balance of liquidity by Friday.
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