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OF DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
TORONTO (Dow Jones)--The absence of U.S. players due tothePresidents Day holiday is making for fairly illiquidcurrencytrading Monday, with the dollar holding close to itsclosing levelsof late last week against most of its majorrivals.
There was little immediate pressure to push the dollar one wayorthe other, according to traders in Europe and North America.
If anything, news Friday that U.S. core producer prices rose0.8%in January will increase talk that the Federal Reserve may needtobe more aggressive in raising U.S. interest rates.
At the same time, poor growth figures from Japan last weekhavelowered expectations of when rates there might be raisedagain.This shift in rate differentials should, if anything,providesupport for the U.S. currency.
However, there was little sign of that situation emergingMonday,with the dollar sliding back to Y105.68 at 8:50 EST (1350GMT) fromY105.72 late Friday in New York.
The dollar was basically flat versus the Swiss franc atCHF1.1832from CHF1.1830. The pound was up at $1.8949 from $1.8936aftercentermove, an internet housing broker, said that house priceswereup 2.3% in February. Although this was being discounted largelyasan effort by estate agents to keep price buoyant, the newswasstill enough to raise U.K. rate rise expectations.
The euro, meanwhile, was marginally lower at $1.3055 comparedwith$1.3064.
A weekend referendum in which Spain voted overwhelminglyinsupport of signing a European Union constitution appears tohavehad little effect on sentiment.
Spain has always been enthusiastic about the E.U. and muchmoreimportant referenda have yet to take place in countries suchasFrance and the U.K.
With the major currencies mostly static, large movements havebeenmainly limited to peripheral currencies - with notably theNewZealand dollar and the Mexican peso continuing to extendtheirstrong recent performance.
These and other so-called higher-yielding currencies, whichallowinvestors to take advantage of superior growth and interestratedifferentials, are likely to be among the most activecurrencypairs for the remainder of Monday.
Its really on the periphery that were seeing some ofthesecurrencies move around a bit more, said financialmarketseconomist Shaun Osborne of Scotia Capital in Toronto. Thesearchfor yield goes on in some of these currencies.
Elsewhere the Canadian dollar was down at C$1.2345 fromC$1.2325late Friday, following an unexpectedly weak Canadian Decrretailsales report.(编辑: lzw)
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