LONDON: The dollar was higher against the yen in otherwise quiet Asia trade Tuesday, with the greenback holding on to some of its gains after Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda clarified controversial remarks he made last week about the Japanese currency.
What upset the market last Wednesday was Kuroda’s comment during a parliamentary session that a measure of the yen’s relative value against other currencies was unlikely to weaken further. The remarks caused the dollar to fall roughly ¥2 from around ¥124.60 in a matter of few hours.
“In making those comments I was neither trying to assess the nominal exchange rate (of the yen) nor forecast its future movement,” Kuroda said Tuesday during a session of the upper house financial affairs committee.
Following his remark, the greenback USDJPY, +0.13% jumped as high as ¥123.81 before weakening to ¥123.56 . That compares with ¥123.37 late Monday in New York.
