Forex - Yen retains weakness after CPI, unemployment, market awaits BoJ

Investing.com - The yen remained weaker against the dollar after consumer prices and unemployment met expectations, thought it recovered from early Friday lows as investors looked ahead to a central bank statement on monetary policy.

September national core CPI rose 3.0%, in-line with forecast for a 16th straight year-on-year rise, but the slowest pace since April sales tax hike

The unemployment rate came in at 3.6%, a tick up from August, but meeting expectations.

USD/JPY traded at 109.31, up 0.09%, while AUD/USD fell 0.06% to 0.8826. EUR/USD traded at 1.2605, down 0.06%.

Ahead is a key Bank of Japan decision on monetary policy at 1230 Tokyo (0330 GMT). The BoJ board is likely to stand pat on monetary policy at its one-day policy meeting.

BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda's regular news conference is then due to start about half an hour later at 1530 (0630 GMT).

In afternoon, Japan's September housing starts are due at 1400 (0500 GMT).

In Australia, there's third quarter PPI final demand and the RBA's private sector credit data for September, all due at 1130 in Sydney (0030 GMT).

PPI is expected to show a rise of 0.2% quarter-on-quarter. Private sector credit is expected to rise 0.4% month-on-month.

Overnight, the dollar firmed against most major currencies after a better-than-expected U.S. growth report and a Federal Reserve decision to close its bond-buying program fueled expectations for rate hikes some time in 2015.

The Commerce Department reported earlier that the U.S. gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 3.5% in the three months to September, beating forecast for 3% growth, which fueled demand for the greenback on expectations that the Federal Reserve remains set to hike interest rates in 2015.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve said it was ending its monthly bond-buying program due to improvements taking place in the labor market, which continued to firm the dollar on Thursday.

Still, the dollar didn't soar on Thursday, as the GDP report revealed that consumer spending slowed to 1.8% from 2.5% in the second quarter, and fixed investment spending also declined from the previous quarter, pointing to slackening domestic demand.

Elsewhere, the Labor Department reported earlier that the number of individuals filing new claims for jobless benefits rose by 3,000 to 287,000, confounding market forecasts for a decline to 283,000.

Meanwhile in the euro zone, preliminary data on Thursday revealed that German inflation was unchanged at 0.7% in October from a month earlier, the lowest level since May.

Separately, the number of people unemployed in Germany fell by 22,000 this month, compared to expectations for a gain of 5,000. The country’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7%.

The US dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, fell 0.03% at 86.22.

On Friday, the U.S. is to round up the week with data on personal income and expenditure as well as revised data on consumer sentiment and a report on business activity in the Chicago region.