Investing.com - The yen held early gains in Asia on Tuesday on continued safe-have demand as markets closely watch polls leading up to a U.K. vote on whether to withdraw from the European Union and awaited the latest word this week from the Federal Reserve on rates.
USD/JPY changed hands at 106.00, down 0.24%, while AUD/USD traded at 0.7396, up 0.11% after the NAB business survey. EUR/USD traded at 1.1294, up 0.02%, while GBP/USD remained down 0.46% at 1.4205.
Sterling has come under pressure in recent sessions amid fears that a U.K. exit or Brexit from the EU in the June 23 referendum could trigger a period of uncertainty in financial markets and hit growth in the region. An opinion poll on Friday conducted by ORB International put support for a Brexit at 53%, against 47% for remaining. A YouGov poll this week showed that the "Leave," campaign overtook the "Stay" campaign in the latest survey, reversing a narrow lead from a poll last week.
In Australia, the NAB business confidence survey for May came in at plus-3, down from the previous reading plus-5, while the NAB business survey rose to plus-10, up from the April reading at plus-9.
The survey showed ongoing recovery in the non-mining sectors of the economy and inflation indicators rose slightly.
"Given the very weak signals on investment intentions coming from elsewhere, we are encouraged to see that the positive trend in capacity utilization rates has continued," NAB Chief Economist Alan Oster said. "Firms are more likely to go out and invest or hire more workers if they see that their spare capacity is shrinking."
"Financial markets have priced in another 25 bp cut by November, but without a very weak CPI result for Q2, positive activity trends are likely to keep the RBA on hold," he said.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was flat at 94.42.
Overnight, the dollar moved lower against the other major currencies on Monday, as sentiment on the greenback became fragile ahead of the Federal Reserve’s monthly policy meeting due to begin on Tuesday.
Markets have pushed back expectations on the timing of the next rate hike by the U.S. central bank after a dismal U.S. employment report for May, which showed the slowest rate of jobs growth since September 2010.
Meanwhile, the safe-haven yen strengthened as weak economic data out of China and Japan on Monday hit the outlook for Asian economic growth.
Data from China showed that growth in fixed-asset investment fell below 10% for the first time since 2000 in the January to May period.
Another report showed that Japan's business survey index of sentiment at large manufacturers fell to minus 11.1 in the second quarter, from a reading of minus 7.9 in the first three months of the year.