Yen gains after BOJ minutes; dollar retreats

The yen rose on Tuesday after Bank of Japan minutes showed the hurdle to further quantitative easing was high, while the dollar slipped as data showing a deterioration in consumer confidence overshadowed a surprise upgrade in third-quarter U.S. growth.

Still the yen, dollar and euro held in tight ranges since Monday ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday when U.S. markets will close.

"I don't see a reason to trade aggressively before Thanksgiving," said Lane Newman, director of foreign exchange at ING Capital Markets in New York.

Some BOJ board members were concerned that expanding the central bank's quantitative easing could raise the risk that it will be seen as financing the government deficit, minutes of the Oct. 31 meeting released on Tuesday showed.

Those concerns came after the BOJ stunned the market last month by expanding its annual government debt purchases to 80 trillion yen from 50 trillion yen in an effort to stimulate Japan's long struggling economy.

That move raised bets the BOJ would pursue more stimulus, pushing the yen to a seven-year low against the dollar last week.

Some analysts said the swift depreciation of the yen, which would help Japanese exporters, might be overdone.

The dollar was down 0.3 percent at 117.93 yen JPY= after it struck a seven-year high of 118.98 last week. The euro dipped 0.06 percent at 147.03 yen after hitting a six-plus year peak of 149.12 yen EURJPY= last Thursday, Reuters data showed.

The dollar earlier got a brief boost after the government upgraded its reading on third-quarter gross domestic product to 3.9 percent. Its gains faded after the Conference Board reported its index on U.S. consumer confidence surprisingly fell to a five-month low in November.

The euro was up 0.2 percent at $1.2464 EUR=, rebounding from a near two-year low of $1.2358 struck earlier this month.

The dollar index .DXY was down 0.2 percent at 87.949 after it touched a near 4-1/2 year high of 88.440 on Monday.

Separately, the Australian dollar fell to a four-year low at $0.8515 AUD= after the Reserve Bank of Australia's Deputy Governor Philip Lowe said the currency was overvalued.