2013.04.0402:21:30UTC+00U.S. dollar falls versus yen

The U.S. dollar bow down versus major counterparts as ADP private payroll and non-manufacturing ISM index data missed assumptions, casting a gloomy shadow over Friday’s jobs data.

The ICE dollar index, which calculates the U.S. currency versus a basket of six major rivals, exchanged at 82.712, slightly lesser than its level.

The WSJ Dollar Index, which calculates the currency versus a wider basket, slumped to 73.22.

While the market has pay attention on the Bank of Japan’s first policy meeting under new leadership for the past week, other market-moving events could include the European Central Bank news conference and the nonfarm payrolls on Friday, Robert Lynch stated, a currency strategist at HSBC. “I think it’s really been more of a consolidative bias ahead of these potentially important events.”

The dollar exchanged at 92.78 Japanese yen, dropping  from ¥93.38 late in North American trade.

The dollar-yen cross has been pulled down along with equities, as the market reacted to weak development in U.S. private-sector payrolls, said Greg Anderson, a senior currency strategist at Citigroup.

The BOJ started its two-day monetary-policy meeting, the first to be led by Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda, who’s committed to fight long-running deflation in Japan and reach a 2% inflation goal in two years.

“Market expectations are high, with expectations of a ‘positive’ surprise,” wrote Elsa Lignos, currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets in London.

The Bank of Japan may draft more quantitative easing when it issues its decision late thursday. Kuroda, speaking at a parliamentary session Tuesday, stated buying five-year or longer-term government securities is one option for easing monetary policy.

The central bank “is assumed to integrate its two Japanese government bond-buying programs (regular market operations and the asset-purchase fund launched in 2010 and boost the maturity of bonds that it purchases (to 5 or 10 years),” Lignos said in a note. “It is also likely to bring forward the start of ‘open-ended’ asset purchases, scheduled to start in 2014 and it could expand to purchases of riskier assets such as ETFs and REITs.”

The euro exchanged at $1.2845 against $1.2812 in North American trade. Cyprus and the International Monetary Fund finalized an agreement that will see the IMF subsidize 1 billion euros ($1.29 billion) on top of the €9 billion rescue provided by the country’s euro-zone partners.

“What’s kind of interesting though is that in this morning’s risk-off trading, the euro has rallied just a bit,” said Citigroup’s Anderson. That rally is due to investors purchasing back euros after taking short positions, he said.

The Bank of England and the European Central Bank both hold policy meetings Thursday. Both are assumed to remain on hold.

The British pound exchanged at $1.5148, up from $1.5109.