Investing.com - The Japanese yen strengthened further in Asia on Tuesday after strong bank lending data boosted sentiment and the Australian dolalr ticked up after gains in business confidence.
Japan June bank lending rose 2.5% from a gain of .4% in May and above expetations of a 2.2% increase. The country's May current account reached a surplus of Y.522.8 billion in June, while the trade deficit for the first 20-days of June reached Y801.74 billion.
USD/JPY traded at 101.76, down 0.11%, after the data.
In Australia, the June NAB business survey saw a +8 gain in business confidence from +7 in May an d business conditions at +2 from -1 in May.
AUD/USD traded at 0.9388, up 0.17%, after the survey.
Overnight, the dollar traded steady to lower against most major currencies after investors locked in gains from Thursday's upbeat U.S. June jobs report and sold the greenback for profits.
Many investors jumped to the sidelines to await the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve's June policy meeting on Wednesday, which may hold clues concerning the direction of monetary policy.
Goldman Sachs said it expected the Fed to raise interest rates in the third quarter of 2015 as opposed to the first quarter of 2016 made in an earlier prediction, though uncertainty ahead of the release of the Fed minutes swayed investors away from the dollar.
The euro, meanwhile, rose on demand from bargain hunters despite soft German industrial output numbers.
Official data showed that German industrial output fell 1.8% in May, the third consecutive monthly decline, defying market calls for a 0.2% expansion.
The US Dollar Index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, fell 0.01% at 80.26.