NEW YORK: The dollar edged up to a nine-month high against the Japanese yen on Monday but dipped against a basket of currencies after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday left open the possibility of further rate hikes.

The greenback hit 146.685 Japanese yen, the highest since Nov. 9.

Traders are watching out for any signs of intervention in the currency market from Japanese authorities as the yen weakens.

The dollar index, which measures the US currency against six others, was down 0.08% at 104.07, after hitting its highest since early June on Friday at 104.44.

The single currency was last at $1.0806, up 0.11% on the day, after falling to $1.07655 on Friday, the lowest since June 13.

China’s yuan steadied against the dollar, buoyed by the Chinese central bank persistently setting stronger-than-expected daily-mid-points. The spot yuan was roughly flat at 7.2928 per dollar.

The China-sensitive Australian dollar rose 0.31% to $0.6423, having taken a beating this month as worries over China’s sputtering post-pandemic recovery weighed on sentiment.

China halved the stamp duty on stock trading effective Monday in the latest attempt to boost the struggling market as a recovery sputters in the world’s second-biggest economy.

However, Chandler noted “how quickly the market rebuffed the Chinese efforts to pump up their stock market.”

China’s blue-chip CSI 300 Index was up 1.2% at the close, some distance from the 5.5% jump at the market open.