Asian currencies barely budged on Monday, with markets postponing speculation on the Chinese yuan and debate over the Sing dollar's direction until a US monetary policy meeting on Tuesday.
The Korean won and Taiwan dollar were slightly weaker, mimicking the Japanese yen.
The Singapore dollar and the other Southeast Asian currencies found some support from expectations that speculative money would push up the premium on the Chinese yuan ahead of a Group of Seven meeting on October 1.
Japanese markets were closed for Respect for the Aged day and Indonesia's markets were shut for the presidential election run-off. That thinned trading in Asia, as did the wariness over what the US Fed would say in a statement accompanying a widely expected quarter point rate rise on Tuesday.
"Whatever the market wants to do, they will wait until FOMC is over," said one Singapore-based trader.
Traders expect to know the outcome of the Indonesian presidential election on Tuesday.
The first vote returns showed ex-general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had a lead over incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri. That could boost the Indonesian rupiah, which hit a two-month high above 9,000 on Friday on expectations of post-election stability.
Traders also expect there will be fresh interest in markets to push up the yuan premium in Chinese yuan non-deliverable forwards. Those NDFs had renewed their speculation of a yuan revaluation last week but retreated on Friday.
Expectations that the G7 would put pressure on China and the rest of Asia to let their currencies strengthen has fed this speculation through yuan NDFs and bids on other Asian currencies.
The yuan is effectively pegged around 8.28 per US dollar.
One-year NDFs were quoted at 2,100 points, pricing in a 2.6 percent appreciation in the yuan in a year. That premium had shifted from 1,800 at the end of August to 2,800 last week.
The won was closer to 1,148 per dollar, not far from a tight range around 1,145 it traded last week.
The yen moved to the weaker side of 110 a dollar and that pushed the Taiwan dollar to the weaker side of last week's 33.80-33.90 range.
Meanwhile, markets in Singapore were in a bind over whether they should still buy the Sing dollar.
The currency was quoted around 1.69 a dollar and has weakened from last week's four-month highs near 1.6850.
Much of the trading in the Sing dollar involves speculating on where it is within the undisclosed trade-weighted band the Monetary Authority of Singapore manages it in. That positioning has intensified ahead of a semi-annual monetary policy review next month.
Analysts estimated the Sing had risen as far as 1.1 percent above the mid-point of that band last week.
The drop in the yuan premium in NDFs caused the Sing dollar to pare some of that gain, and on Monday it was down to about 0.8-1.0 percent into the firmer side of the band.
Data last week showing strong exports and non-oil imports also supported the Sing, and the view that the MAS may retain its tightening policy bias.
"These numbers leave us more convinced that the MAS is likely to retain a bias for modest tightening in monetary policy when it meets in October," Bhanu Baweja, a strategist with UBS said.
"We continue to suggest staying long the Sing dollar against a weighted basket of its trading-partner currencies."
Jimmy Koh of United Overseas Bank said domestic demand remained weak in Singapore and the MAS would not tighten policy further.
He said most of the appreciation in the Sing had been spurred by speculation on the yuan, rather than on policy change in the city-state.
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