Investing.com - The dollar traded largely lower against most
major currencies on Tuesday as market participants left the safety
of the greenback and went long on stocks, which rose on renewed
optimism that U.S. quarterly earnings may surprise on the upside.
A Bank of Japan decision to delay rolling out stimulus measures
sent the yen gaining, which dulled the greenback's luster as did
solid European sentiment data.
In U.S. trading on Tuesday, EUR/USD was down 0.01% at 1.3313.
Stock prices rose on Tuesday as investors began to cast aside fears
that fourth-quarter earnings will seriously disappoint and moved
toward risk-on equities and away from the dollar.
Meanwhile the yen saw solid demand after the Bank of Japan
announced plans to conduct open-ended asset purchases to stimulate
the economy but not until 2014, which caught many investors
expecting more immediate action off guard.
The yen surged on the news, which came at the dollar's expense as
did strong economic sentiment data out of Europe.
Earlier Tuesday, the ZEW Centre for Economic Research reported that
its index of German economic sentiment improved to 31.5 in January
from 6.9 the previous month, far surpassing expectations for a rise
to 12.0.
A separate report showed that the ZEW index of eurozone economic
sentiment jumped to 31.2 this month from 7.6 in December, compared
with expectations for a reading of 14.0.
The dollar did see support, however, on weaker-than-expected
housing data out of the U.S.
In a report, the National Association of Realtors said that home
sales fell to 4.94 million units from 4.99 million in November,
whose figure was revised down from 5.04 million.
Analysts had expected existing home sales to rise to 5.10 million
last month.
The greenback, meanwhile, was up against the pound, with GBP/USD
trading down 0.03% at 1.5826.
The dollar plunged against the yen, with USD/JPY trading down 1.01%
at 88.70 and fell against the Swiss franc, with USD/CHF trading
down 0.35% at 0.9293.
The dollar was down against its cousins in Canada, Australia and
New Zealand, with USD/CAD down 0.04% at 0.9926, AUD/USD up 0.45% at
1.0563 and NZD/USD trading up 0.57% at 0.8408.
The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback
versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.17% at
79.99.
On Wednesday, the U.S. is to release government data on crude oil
stockpiles.
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