Investing.com - The Aussie fell in Asia on Tuesday after central bank minutes suggested there's room on the downside for the currency.
The Australian dollar exchange rate and overall economic growth in the second quarter will be key for the monetary policy stance with current conditions making the record low 2% the right stance for now, the Reserve Bank of Australia said in the minutes of its latest monetary policy review released on Tuesday.
On July 7, the RBA left the cash rate unchanged at 2.0% at the meeting and issued a statement similar to June, reiterating the outlook that its future monetary policy moves will be influenced by incoming data and financial conditions.
AUD/USD traded at 0.7360, down 0.14%.
Earlier, the Bank of Japan board was largely in agreement that prices will rise in the longer term, though one member said it would show up moderately in consumer inflation, according to minutes of the June monetary policy meeting released on Tuesday.
However, other members said the impact of the quantitative easing to buy ¥80 trillion of mostly government bonds annually has had a big impact on the economy and higher prices are spreading and are also driven by higher wages.
Board member Takahide Kiuchi has been the lone dissenter in recent reviews by the nine-member board, calling for the easing program to be scaled back to ¥45 trillion.
Later, the BoJ will release a speech by Governor Haruhiko Kuroda at the Amartya Sen Lecture in Bangkok hosted by Cambridge Society of Thailand at
2215 (1315 GMT).
USD/JPY changed hands at 124.38, up 0.08%.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.01% at 98.19.
Overnight, the dollar remained at three-month highs against a basket of other major currencies in quiet trade on Monday, as mounting expectations for a U.S. rate hike in the near future continued to lend broad support to the greenback.
Demand for the dollar remained supported after upbeat data on Friday fuelled further expectations for a U.S. rate hike in the near future.
Data on Friday showed that the U.S. consumer price index rose 0.3% in June, while consumer prices ticked up by 0.1% last month on a yearly basis.
A separate report showed that U.S. housing starts rose 9.8% to 1.174 million units in June, compared to expectations for an increase of 6.2%.
U.S. building permits rose 7.4% to 1.343 million units last month, confounding expectations for a 11.8% drop.
The data came after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said, in testimony before the House Financial Services committee, that the Fed is likely to raise rates "at some point this year." She added that the U.S. labor market healthier but "still some slack."
In a decree Saturday, the Greek government kept the daily cash withdrawal limit at €60 but added a weekly limit of €420.
The decree came on the same day as Greece's coalition government swore in its new, reshuffled cabinet. Five prominent dissidents from the Syriza party, the senior coalition party, were replaced.
On Friday, German lawmakers voted in favour of opening discussions on Greece's third bailout and the European Union decided to release a short-term loan of €7.16 billion to help Greece pay back a loan due Monday to the European Central Bank.
The Greek Parliament was scheduled to vote on further austerity measures on Wednesday.