SINGAPORE: The dollar dipped versus the yen on Monday, backing off of a two-week high hit late last week after a surprise drop in the US unemployment rate soothed investor concerns about the US economy's outlook.
The dollar fell 0.2 percent to 78.55 yen, down from Friday's high of 78.88 yen hit on trading platform EBS, the US currency's strongest level since Sept. 19.
The US unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent in September, its lowest level since January 2009, the US Labor Department said on Friday.
The data triggered a rise in the 10-year US Treasury yield to its highest level in about two weeks, and helped the dollar rise versus the yen on Friday, market players said.
Still, a substantial move higher in US bond yields from here seems unlikely, and any gains in the dollar versus the yen will probably be limited in the near term, said Mitul Kotecha, head of global foreign exchange strategy for Credit Agricole in Hong Kong.
"The impression I get is just above 79, there is a lot of sellers out there. The impression we get is a lot of (Japanese) exporters will be in around that level," he said.
Friday's data is unlikely to be enough to convince market participants that the US jobs market is headed toward a strengthening recovery, Kotecha added.
According to a business sentiment survey published by the Bank of Japan last week, the average dollar/yen exchange rate assumption that major Japanese manufacturers are using in their business plans for the six months to March 2013 is 78.97 yen.
That suggests that Japanese exporters may want to sell the dollar if it rises beyond that threshold, although they are unlikely to be active on Monday, with Japanese markets closed for a public holiday.
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