By William L. Watts Dow Jones Newswires The U.S. dollar was higher versus most major rivals Thursday, boosted by remarks from Japan's new finance minister indicating a desire for a weaker yen. Reluctance by traders to make big bets ahead of the release of December U.S. employment data on Friday helped ease pressure on the greenback seen in late trade Wednesday, after minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting showed policy makers continue to expect a slow recovery with little threat of inflation pressure. The tone of the FOMC minutes "should keep the U.S. dollar on offer, but investors are unlikely to assume heavy directional positions ... just ahead of tomorrow's key U.S. jobs report," wrote strategists at UniCredit MIB in Milan. "All in all, nervous range trading should prevail today." The dollar index (DXY), which measures the U.S. unit against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, rose to 77.863 from 77.479 in late North American trade on Wednesday. The U.S. dollar rose to 93.10 yen versus the Japanese currency, up from 92.31 Wednesday. Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan, in his inaugural news conference, said that many Japanese companies favor the dollar trading around 95 yen and that he will work with the Bank of Japan to get the currency to "appropriate" levels. "Kan's first official briefing as finance minister set the tone for the market and highlighted the deep contrast between [him and] the previous minister," Hirohisa Fujii, wrote analysts at Action Economics. The British pound changed hands at $1.5920 versus the dollar, a loss of 0.5%. The euro rose 0.1% against sterling to fetch 90.05 pence. The pound was largely unchanged in the wake of the meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. As expected, the central bank left its key lending rate unchanged at a record low of 0.5% and made no changes to its 200 billion pound ($320 billion) quantitative-easing program. The euro fell to $1.4335, down from $1.4394 late Wednesday. Data released by the European Union statistics agency Eurostat on Thursday showed a sharp fall in euro-zone retail sales in the run-up to Christmas, with November sales volumes off 1.2% from October. Compared to November 2008, sales were off 4%. Meanwhile, the European Commission's December economic sentiment indicator for the euro zone was upbeat, rising 2.5 points to 91.3 in December, gaining ground for the ninth consecutive month after hitting a low in March. The index still remains below its long-term average. Earlier in the Asian session, the Australian currency grabbed the spotlight. Much stronger-than-expected November retail sales in Australia and a narrowing of the trade deficit sent the Aussie climbing earlier, as more interest-rate hikes from the Reserve Bank of Australia became more likely. The Aussie dollar later reversed and was trading at 91.78 U.S. cents, down 0.2%, after rising to a five-week high of 92.68 cents after the data were released.

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