By Joseph Adinolfi, MarketWatch , Hiroyuki Kachi

Investors look ahead to minutes from Fed's September meeting, expected Thursday

The dollar strengthened against the yen Wednesday after the Bank of Japan left its program of asset purchases unchanged at the close of its two-day policy meeting.

The buck is on track to decline against the Japanese currency for a second straight day.

The yen surged after the central bank's decision, briefly driving the dollar to its lowest level in nearly a week. The dollar recently bought Yen119.98 late Wednesday in New York, down 0.2% from Yen120.26 late Tuesday in New York.

Most market strategists said an expansion of its Yen80 trillion-a-year ($67 billion) program of asset purchases was unlikely on Wednesday, but some believe the central bank will act at its next meeting on Oct. 30.

The dollar was broadly weaker Tuesday, with a few exceptions. It strengthened against the euro , with the shared currency declining to $1.1244 late Wednesday, down 0.2% from $1.1268 late Tuesday. The buck also traded higher against the Swiss franc and Swedish krona .

But the buck depreciated against its emerging-markets rivals for a second straight day -- on track to decline against the Mexican peso , Brazilian real , Turkish lira and South African rand for the ninth session in the last 10.

The Malaysian ringgit and Indonesian rupiah soared against the dollar, supported by a monthly update on China's foreign currency reserves which showed the central bank spent less supporting the yuan in September.

Read:Indonesian rupiah rises to 6-week high on China data (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/indonesian-rupiah-rises-to-6-week-high-on-china-data-2015-10-07)

Read: China will be able to support the yuan for a long, long time (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-will-be-able-to-support-the-yuan-for-a-long-time-2015-10-07)

It also weakened against the British pound , as well as the New Zealand Australian dollars .

Overall, the dollar has been range bound since the Federal Reserve's decision to leave interest rates unchanged in September as investors try to suss out whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in 2015.

Read: Why the TPP is better off without currency manipulation protection (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-tpp-is-better-off-without-currency-manipulation-protection-2015-10-06)

"For so long now, I'd even say since before the start of the year, we've priced in dollar recovery, but then doubt starts creeping in," said Neil Mellor, a currency strategist at BNY Mellon. "The dollar is just waiting for that starting pistol to go off. And at some point, it will."

The ICE U.S. Dollar index , a measure of the bucks's strength against a basket of six currencies, rose 0.1% to 95.5240.

Investors are now looking ahead to the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve's September meeting, hoping they will provide some insight into the central bank's plan for raising interest rates.

 

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 07, 2015 16:22 ET (20:22 GMT)

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