Investing.com - The U.S. dollar was holding steady against the Japanese yen on Tuesday amid encouraging signs that the U.S. and China will soon agree an interim deal to halt their trade war.
Market sentiment was boosted by reports that China's Vice Premier and chief trade negotiator Liu He held a phone call with his U.S. counterparts and that both sides reached consensus on how to move forward in their dispute.
That came after the Chinese state-backed Global Times newspaper on its Twitter feed on Monday the two countries are very close to a "phase one" trade deal, discounting "negative" media reports.
The dollar initially rose to two-week highs of 109.19 against the yen, before settling back to 108.9 by 04:04 AM ET (09:04 GMT), unchanged for the day. It sat at 98.19 against a basket of currencies, just below a one-week high.
"The broad trend is the markets are looking for a deal because trade has been the biggest factor weighing on global growth and holding back confidence," said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP Capital Investors in Sydney.
The euro was little changed against the greenback at 1.1014, holding above the one-week low of 1.1003 reached on Monday.
The British pound was lower, down 0.2% at 1.2871 after an opinion poll in the U.K. showed that the opposition Labor Party has narrowed the governing Conservatives lead ahead of a Dec. 12 election, fueling uncertainty over Brexit.
Investors were looking ahead to U.S. trade data, house price figures and consumer confidence data later in the trading day, but overall, currency trading is slowing down ahead of U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.
--Reuters contributed to this report