By Satoshi Sugiyama
TOKYO, April 1 (Reuters) – The dollar was largely steady on Wednesday, with gains from safe-haven demand fading, as U.S. President Donald Trump said the war with Iran could wind down within weeks, though conflicting signals on the conflict kept investors on edge.
The yen has recovered from this year’s low of 160.46 per dollar, moving back through the psychologically important 160 level that had fanned concerns of intervention by Japanese authorities. The euro hit more than a one-week high.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.03% to 99.70, with the euro up 0.21% at $1.1576.
The Japanese yen strengthened 0.11% against the greenback to 158.55 per dollar. The yen was steady after the Bank of Japan’s quarterly tankan survey showed business sentiment among large Japanese manufacturers improved in the three months to March, a sign that increasing economic uncertainty from the Middle East conflict has yet to hit morale.
Sterling strengthened 0.21% to $1.3247.
The greenback has benefited from a safe-haven bid since the conflict began in late February, and the U.S., a net energy exporter, is also relatively better positioned to handle oil disruptions than other nations.
“While the headlines were worth a bit of a jump in risk assets, the state of the war and its impact on fundamentals haven’t materially changed yet and the overnight moves are liable to quickly reverse,” said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com.
Trump said on Tuesday the U.S. could end its military campaign against Iran within two to three weeks. His comment followed a Wall Street Journal report a day earlier saying the U.S. president told aides he is willing to end the military campaign against Iran even if the crucial Strait of Hormuz shipping artery remains largely closed with unclear plans to get it reopened at a later date.
The White House said Trump would address the nation “to provide an important update on Iran” at 9 p.m. EDT on Wednesday (0100 GMT on Thursday).
At the same time, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the next few days in the war against Iran would be decisive and warned Tehran that the conflict would intensify if it did not make a deal, pointing to signs of escalation in the conflict.
This week’s main U.S. economic focus will be Friday’s jobs report for March. It is expected to show that employers added 60,000 jobs during the month, according to the median estimate of economists polled by Reuters, following an unexpected loss of 92,000 jobs in February.
A sharp deterioration in the labor market would likely revive expectations for Fed rate cuts this year, which have been largely priced out as rising oil prices from the Iran war stoke inflation concerns.
The Australian dollar strengthened 0.35% versus the greenback to $0.6924. New Zealand’s kiwi strengthened 0.19% versus the greenback to $0.5756.
In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell 0.03% to $68,177.08. Ethereum declined 0.08% to $2,103.76.
(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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