By Deborah Levine, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The dollar dropped against the euro and the Japanese yen Wednesday, will little in the way of economic news out of Europe and no major reports on the U.S. calendar to provide direction.
The dollar index (DXY 80.23, -0.14, -0.17%) , which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, slipped to 80.245, off from 80.367 late Tuesday.
The dollar saw its biggest drop on the day against the New Zealand dollar, while the Swiss franc sat little changed after recently touching records against both the euro and the U.S. currency.
The euro (EURUSD 1.3133, +0.0015, +0.1144%) rose to $1.3135, up from $1.3119 in late trading Tuesday.
Against the yen, the dollar (USDYEN 82.0600, -0.3800, -0.4611%) traded at ¥82.12, down from ¥82.45 Tuesday.
Major currencies were “locked in tight ranges, digesting the indecisive volatility noted over the preceding 24 hours,” said Ilya Spivak, currency strategist at DailyFX.com. “The U.S. Dollar had dropped as much as 0.8% on average against its top counterparts from yesterday’s Asia session through midday in New York only to recover in the subsequent hours.
“These wild swings did not seem linked to any specific catalyst, owing more to the volatility-amplifying effects of thin liquidity around the holiday period than anything tangible,” Spivak wrote in a note.
Among other currencies, the dollar dropped 0.9% against its New Zealand counterpart (USDNZD 1.3328, -0.0050, -0.3737%) , while the British pound (GBP 153.69, -0.52, -0.34%) inched up 0.2% to $1.5389.
The dollar (USDSWF 0.9506, -0.0009, -0.0946%) bought 0.9508 of a Swiss franc, little changed from Tuesday and only slightly above the record low touched that day. See more on currency action on Tuesday.
