By Gina Lee

Investing.com – The dollar was down on Thursday morning in Asia, but trading near a five-year high against the yen. The U.S. Federal Reserve’s in the contrasted with the dovish approach taken by its Japanese counterpart.

At 11:13PM ET (4.13 GMT), The Index that monitors the greenback against a basket other currencies fell 0.14% and was at 96.737. The index was close to Wednesday’s record of 96.938, which is its highest level since July 2020.

The pair fell 0.04% to 115.36, a mark not reached since January 2017.

Both the pair increased 0.12% to 0.7204, and the pair increased 0.04% at 0.6876.

Both the pair fell 0.05% at 6.3885, and both were up 0.1% to 1.3887.

In Wednesday’s minutes, Fed suggested that it might accelerate its asset tapering program and increase interest rates sooner than expected, if inflation continues to rise.

Mary Daly from San Francisco Fed also indicated Wednesday that she would be open to hearing a case for asset tapering acceleration.

Tapas Strickland, director of economics at National Australia Bank said that the U.S. economy maintained its “titanium status”, buoying dollar.

“Slightly hawkish remarks from the otherwise dovish Daly were also factors.”

U.S. markets are closed due to holiday, so the attention is on the later part of the day. Christine Lagarde, president of the ECB will give a speech to an ECB legal conference the day after. Board members Edouard Fernandez Bollo and Frank Elderson will also be present.

Investors will also be watching to see if the Bank of England (BOE), will raise interest rates with its next policy announcement on December 16. Investors were shocked when central banks kept rates at their. Look to Andrew Bailey, the governor of the BOE at Cambridge University for more clues.

Asia Pacific: The lowered its interest rate by 1%, as the Asia Pacific Bank handed down earlier in the morning its policy decision.