TOKYO: The dollar slipped back below 100 yen in Asia Wednesday after US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke indicated the bank's stimulus programme would remain in place until the economy was back on track.
The greenback bought 99.97 yen in Tokyo midday trading, down from 100.13 yen Tuesday in New York before Bernanke's comments.
The euro bought $1.3554 compared with $1.3535, while it was also at 135.51 yen against 135.53 yen.
Traders sold the dollar as the outgoing Fed chief assured markets that interest rates would remain low "well after" the jobless rate hits 6.5 percent, said Kengo Suzuki, forex strategist at Mizuho Securities.
Bernanke gave no specific indication of when the Fed might start pulling back on its monetary easing, which keeps interest rates low by spending vast sums of cash on Treasury bills to keep yields down.
"His comments were initially perceived as dovish, leading to broad dollar-selling," Suzuki told Dow Jones Newswires.
But Suzuki added that they "could be taken both ways -- he said the decision to pull back depends on incoming economic indicators, and that led to some buying back".
Bernanke, with about 11 weeks left in his eight-year tenure as Fed chair, reiterated the Fed's commitment in its easy-money stance, in line with what his designated successor, Janet Yellen, told a Senate panel last week.
Analysts are now keeping an eye on the release later in the day of minutes from the Fed's most recent policy meeting in October, hoping garner fresh clues about its plans for the stimulus.
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