The US Dollar continued to hold onto recent gains versus the Japanese Yen as well as the common currency Euro. The Euro, especially, was under pressure after the monetary policy decision of the European Central Bank was announced yesterday which essentially extended the life of the quantitative easing program while reducing the monthly bond purchases. Initially, on the news of tapering, the Euro had edgedf near to a 1-month high but the news of the extended program cut those gains short. Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, said that the ECB could still increase the monthly purchases as and when needed.

As reported at 11:33 am (JST) in Tokyo, the USD/JPY was trading at 114.392 Yen, a gain of 0.27%, not far from the session peak of 114.54 Yen. The EUR/USD was lower at 1.0601, down 0.09%.

Aussie Dollar Recovers Earlier Loss

The Aussie Dollar edged higher against the US Dollar and was trading at $0.7459, a gain of 0.04%. The AUD/USD pair had lost about 0.3% in the overnight hours but seems to be recovering after the release of upbeat Chinese data which showed consumer and producer inflation beating expectations. The Kiwi Dollar was also higher at $0.7180, a gain of 0.08%.