Dollar improves

TOKYO: The dollar edged up to a nine-day high against a basket of currencies on Thursday, with the euro sagging as the European Central Bank showed no sign of stepping away from monetary easing anytime soon.

The U.S. currency was up 0.3 percent at 111.385 yen, putting some distance between the four-month low of 110.110 it plumbed on Monday. The euro dipped 0.2 percent to $1.0745, having drifted down from a 4-1/2-month high of $1.0906 scaled on Monday.

The common currency had dropped about 0.5 percent overnight following a report by Reuters that European Central Bank policymakers were wary of changing their policy message after tweaks this month had raised expectations of the central bank ending its super-easy policy and eventually hiking interest rates. "The market may have gotten ahead of itself on its expectations towards the ECB ending its easy policy and the news helped temper such speculation," said Junichi Ishikawa, senior FX strategist at IG Securities in Tokyo.

"That said, the ECB seems set on finding a way out of its easy policy, so it would be difficult for the euro to keep declining. It is no longer a case of the euro being sold on easy policy expectations, with German bund yields settled firmly in positive territory.