Investing.com - The yen gained Wednesday after the economy met an expected growth pace, while the current account surplus came in narrower than expected with the Aussie down on weak housing-related data.
USD/JPY changed hands at 107.03, down 0.31%, while AUD/USD traded at 0.7450, down 0.11%.
In China, a trade balance surplus of $49.98 billion was just shy of the expected $50 billion for May on imports eased 0.4%, less than the 6.0% drop seen and exports that fell 4.1%, more than the expected decline of 3.6% year-on-year.
Earlier in Japan, the adjusted current account showed a surplus of Y1.63 trillion yen, narrower than the surplus of ¥2.04 trillion seen.
GDP for the first quarter in Japan met the 1.9% gain seen year-on-year as well as the 0.5% pace quarter-on-quarter.
In Australia home loans for April rose 1.7%, below the 2.5% increase expected month-on-month, while housing finance dropped 5.0%, compared with a 1.5% gain posted in April.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was last quoted down 0.11% at 93.74.
Overnight, the dollar remained close to one-month lows against the other major currencies on Tuesday, after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Monday sparked fresh uncertainty over the timing of future U.S. rate hikes.
Yellen indicated on Monday that the U.S. central bank won’t be raising interest rates until uncertainty over the economic outlook is resolved.
Yellen said she expects the economic recovery to continue but gave no indications on the timing of a next rate increase.
The remarks came after data on Friday showing that the U.S. economy added just 38,000 jobs last month, the smallest increase since September 2010.
The disappointing data ruled out chances for a June rate hike and prompted investors to push back expectations on the timing of the next rate hike until later this year.