Investing.com - The Chinese yuan slipped against the dollar on Thursday as the U.S. held off from labeling China as a currency manipulator.
The Treasury Department declined to label China or any other trading partner of the U.S. as currency manipulators, but added that Beijing and some other countries including Germany, Japan and India have been put on a watch list.
The USD/CNY pair last traded at 6.9367 at 12:20 AM ET (04:20 GMT), up 0.12%. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the yuan reference rate at 6.9275 vs the previous day's fix of 6.9103.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies inched up 0.06% to 95.41 after the minutes from the latest Federal Open Market Committee meeting revealed that the Fed is likely to gradually raise rates to preserve a steady economy, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s view that the central bank has been increasing rates too fast.
"The USD has been making up some lost ground in the past 24 hours or so. It seems to have been more market related rather than US data (only housing starts were released overnight and they were likely hurricane affected), while the FOMC Minutes this morning also have not shifted the dial too much," David de Garis, a director and senior economist at National Australia Bank, said in a morning note.
Elsewhere, the USD/JPY pair dipped 0.12% to 112.53 after Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda said the central bank will continue to maintain its current stance of low interest rates until Japan achieves its 2% inflation target.
The AUD/USD pair and the NZD/USD pair gained 0.4% and 0.08% respectively.