Dollar edges back up, yen slips from recent one-month high

The US dollar edged up on Tuesday after it was dented by weak US retail sales data overnight.

The dollar index, a gauge of its value against six major peers, traded steady at 95.143, gaining 0.09 percent on Tuesday, but off an intraday high of 95.37 on Monday prior to release of the retail sales data.

That data suggested consumers were reluctant to spend, and came as US bond yields cooled off from its seven-year high last week.

The benchmark US 10-year yields consolidated at 3.16 percent on Tuesday, having hit a seven-year high of 3.26 percent on October 9.

“Even when US equities were collapsing and there was a risk-off mood in the global markets, the dollar did not trade strong as one would expect,” said Ray Attrill, head of currency strategy at National Australia Bank.

“The equity correction is not done... the dollar is behaving in an asymmetric manner – good news is not so good and bad news is much worse in terms of price action for the dollar,” added Attrill.

The Japanese yen weakened by 0.19 percent on Tuesday and changed hands at 111.97. The yen had hit a onemonth high of 111.61 on Monday.

The Swiss franc weakened 0.17 percent versus the dollar to trade at 0.9886 on Tuesday, after tacking on 0.45 percent overnight.

Both the yen and Swiss franc have attracted buyers amid tensions between the Western powers and Saudi Arabia, which has been under pressure since a prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Riyadh and a US resident, disappeared on October 2 after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.