By Lisa Twaronite, MarketWatch TOKYO (MarketWatch) - The dollar slipped against major counterparts Monday, giving back some of Friday's surge as investors took profits, but it remained well above recent lows on increased bets that the U.S. Federal Reserve will increase rates earlier than some had forecast. The dollar index (DXY 75.92, +0.23, +0.30%) , which measures the buck's performance against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was at 75.571, down from 75.819 in late North American trading on Friday. On Friday, the dollar index leaped the most since June after a report showed a surprisingly small drop in U.S. jobs, raising expectations of a stronger U.S. recovery that could prompt the Fed to start tightening. See Friday's Currencies report. The U.S. Labor Department said the economy shed 11,000 jobs last month, a fraction of what analysts anticipated. The unemployment rate also surprisingly declined. See Economic Report on U.S. jobs data. The euro was trading at $1.4884, up from $1.4847 late Friday, and the dollar was buying 89.94 yen, down from 90.51 yen. Despite the yen's rise Monday, the Japanese unit is still well below recent highs, and this gave Japanese stocks a lift. A weaker yen helps support repatriated overseas profits of exporters, so the yen's recent strength has vexed Japanese policy makers, who are worried about sustaining the country's fragile recovery. "The rally in [the] U.S. dollar could not have come too soon for Japanese policy makers and the Nikkei," wrote Sue Trinh, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets in Sydney. "From 84.83, the shock USD/JPY low [of] Oct. 27 to Friday's 90.50, the Nikkei has gone from testing 9,050, to back above 10,100."

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