Investing.com - The dollar pared back gains against the yen on Wednesday after the release of data showing that U.S. housing starts and building permits missed expectations in March.
USD/JPY was last up 0.28% to 102.19, off session highs of 102.37.
The pair was likely to find support at 101.60 and resistance at 102.65.
Housing starts rose 2.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 946,000, led by single-family homes, the U.S. Commerce Department said. Analysts had expected a 6.4% increase to an annual rate of 973,000.
Despite March's gain, housing starts were down 5.9% from a year earlier, the largest annual contraction since April 2011.
Building permits, an indicator of future demand for housing, fell 2.4% in March to an annual rate of 990,000, led by a drop for apartments. Market expectations had been for an increase of 0.6%.
Demand for the dollar continued to be underpinned after official data on Wednesday showed that China’s economy grew slightly more than expected in the first quarter, bolstering risk appetite.
China’s gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 7.4% in the first three months of 2014, slowing from 7.7% in the fourth quarter, but slightly ahead of expectations for growth of 7.3%.
The dollar remained slightly lower against the euro, with EUR/USD easing up 0.14% to 1.3834 from 1.3813 on Tuesday.
Elsewhere, the euro was higher against the yen, with EUR/JPY up 0.45% to 141.41.
In the euro zone, data on Wednesday confirmed that the annual rate of inflation slowed to 0.5% in March from 0.7% the previous month, the lowest since November 2009.
Core inflation, which strips out volatile items like food and energy costs, fell to 0.7% from 1.0% in February, matching the record low reached in December 2013.
Euro zone inflation has now been in the European Central Bank's danger zone of below 1% for six straight months, fuelling speculation that policymakers will need to implement fresh stimulus measures to shore up the fragile recovery in the euro area.