Dollar moves narrowly amid holiday lull

TOKYO (AFP) - The dollar was little changed against the euro and the yen in Asia on Monday as traders looked ahead to upcoming US bank earning results due this week.
The dollar was at 100.41 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade, hardly changed from 100.36 yen here on Friday afternoon. The euro was quoted at 1.3168 dollars against 1.3127 and at 132.23 yen after 131.76.
Investors were reluctant to take new positions, waiting for the New York and London markets to reopen after the long holiday weekend, said Yuji Saito, forex head of Societe Generale.
Trading should pick up from Tuesday, with markets eyeing quarterly earnings results from US banking giant Goldman Sachs, Saito said.
As the market is already hopeful that the figures will not be too bad, it may be hard for the dollar to rise even if the banks report signs of a recovery in their fortunes, he said. US banking giant Wells Fargo’s forecast last week of a record first-quarter profit sparked hopes of an easing of the financial crisis. If the results are worse than expected, that could lead to increased risk aversion and also prompt buying of the yen, which has tended to strengthen recently when risk worries increase, traders said.
“The initial reaction will likely be yen-buying, and thereafter, players will pay attention to how stock markets react to the releases,” Shinichi Hayashi, a senior dealer at Shinkin Central Bank, told Dow Jones Newswires. The dollar was unmoved by news Friday that the US budget deficit expanded in March to hit a record nearly one trillion dollars just halfway through the current fiscal year, due to bailouts of troubled institutions.
Traders said that with other countries also spending heavily to pump up their recession-hit economies, the market largely overlooked the US data.
Against regional Asian currencies, the dollar eased to 1.5143 Singapore dollars, from 1.5178 on Friday, to 1,321.80 South Korean won from 1,333.00, to 33.71 Taiwan dollars from 33.79, and to 11,100 Indonesian rupiah from 11,310.
The greenback rose to 35.64 Thai baht from 35.43 while holding steady at 47.82 Philippine pesos.