SINGAPORE: The yen was broadly steady to firmer on Thursday as risk appetite waned, while the euro held its ground after sliding the previous day on talk of more monetary easing by the European Central Bank.
The Australian dollar fell 0.2 percent to 101.00 yen . Trading was choppy, with the Aussie dollar having traded in a 101.47 yen to 100.24 yen range so far on Thursday.
The Japanese currency will probably be supported on the crosses as long as risk sentiment stays wobbly, said Roy Teo, FX strategist for ABN AMRO Bank in Singapore.
"What we do see right now is that (when there is) a bit of a reduction in risk appetite...the yen still continues to strengthen," Teo said.
"Until the market calms down, I think the cross/yen upside is limited," he added.
The US dollar held steady at 98.05 yen.
In the stock market, MSCI's broadest measure of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.7 percent.
"There is a lot of two way flow in dollar/yen," said Adam Gilmour, head of FX and derivatives sales for Asia Pacific for Citi in Singapore.
"We basically saw a lot of traditional dollar sellers come back into the market in the last couple of days, they had been sitting on their hands on the move higher," he said.
"But real money and leveraged (players) are still looking for a higher dollar/yen," Gilmour added.
The dollar had hit a four-year high of 99.95 yen last week, with its rise stalling just short of the psychologically key 100 yen threshold due to options-related dollar offers.
Many market players, however, see the yen eventually weakening beyond 100 to the dollar, due to the Bank of Japan's drastic monetary stimulus.
The BoJ's radical monetary policy overhaul will pump about $1.4 trillion into the economy in less than two years, via a souped-up bond-buying scheme that is expected to drive Japanese investors to look overseas in search of better yields.
Japanese capital flows data, however, contain little sign of such outflows so far.
Latest data released on Thursday showed that Japanese investors sold a net 331.9 billion yen in foreign bonds last week, after having sold a net 1.1 trillion yen in overseas bonds the week before that, when the BoJ announced its aggressive easing.
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