The dollar eased on Wednesday, backing away from a nearly three-week high hit against the yen, as currency traders readied for the release of Federal Reserve meeting minutes. Coming off two days of gains, the greenback was down 0.25 percent versus the yen but above session lows touched after the Bank of Japan kept monetary policy unchanged despite slowing inflation.
The dollar last stood at 119.9 yen, while the dollar index, which measures the greenback against the yen and five other major currencies, was mostly down and was last nearly unchanged.
The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's March 17-18 meeting will be released later on Wednesday. The dollar strengthened for several months, in part due to the performance of the US economy against the rest of the world, and anticipation of tighter US policy. The yen climbed and knocked the dollar from a nearly three-week high of 120.45 yen hit on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the euro nudged up as high as $1.0887 despite an unexpected drop in German industrial orders in February, before easing 0.20 percent to $1.0796 percent.