On Wednesday, both the Japanese yen and the Australian dollar declined in Asia with China markets back to action after a week-long holiday.
USD/JPY traded at 108.24, up 0.09%, while AUD/USD changed hands at 0.8797, down 0.18%.
China's
markets re-opened with the release of the HSBC China services PMI for
September came in at 53.5, down from 54.1 in August.
According to the finance ministry, Japan posted a trade deficit of ¥768.24 billion in the first 20 days of September, down 23.3% from the ¥1.002 trillion deficit in the year-earlier period. At 1400 (0500 GMT), Japan's September Economy Watchers' Survey and the BoJ's October economic report are due.
The greenback was steady against a basket of other major currencies overnight, after
the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for global growth for
2014 and 2015 and warned that the global recovery is weak and uneven.
The
IMF is now predicting global economic growth of 3.3% this year, down
from 3.4% in July and expects growth of 3.8% in 2015, compared to an
earlier prediction of 4.0%.
The body said Europe was experiencing
a "multispeed recovery" and revised down its growth forecasts for
Germany, France and Italy saying progress was still "slow and tentative"
in many countries.
Japan received the largest downgrade of any
country, with growth for this year now expected to be 0.9%, in part due
to the effects of a sales tax increase in April.
