Dollar weakened against the euro

 Dollar weakened against the euro


 The dollar weakened against the euro on Monday (Tuesday morning GMT ) , as traders seemed cautious ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman prime witness Janet Yellen to Congress this week .

The euro edged up to 1.3642 dollars around 22:00 GMT ( Tuesday at 5:00 pm ) , from 1.3637 dollars late on Friday ( 7/2 ) .

The dollar also weakened slightly against the Japanese currency , bought 102.18 yen compared with 102.30 yen .

The euro slipped to 139.46 yen from 139.52 yen .

Yellen will provide information about the state of the economy and direction of U.S. monetary policy to the House finance committee on Tuesday . It will be the first for the new Fed chairman presents the semi - annual testimony to Congress the central bank after replacing Ben Bernanke on February 1 . He will appear in the same session in the Senate on Thursday ( 13/2 ) .

After a weak January U.S. jobs report on Friday - the second disappointing jobs report in a row - Yellen testimony is expected to be monitored closely to see if he stated that the reduction in the Fed's stimulus is very large will be slowed .

" Traders may be out of the market in the hope of receiving a bit of clarity about the reduction in the Fed's stimulus plan forward , " said Christopher Vecchio , currency analyst at DailyFX .

Yellen testimony " probably the best insight into the mind of the new Fed chairman - although we will not seek major changes , because there is no Fed chairman who announced the formal change of policy in congressional testimony , " he said .

Kathy Lien of BK Asset Management said there is no doubt that MPs will question Yellen on threshold unemployment rate of 6.5 percent for the Fed to consider tightening interest rates are near zero . The unemployment rate fell to approach that position , to 6.7 percent , in January .

Lien estimates that Yellen would say that the Federal Open Market Committee ( FOMC ) will guide future re-evaluate at the next meeting in March .

" But it may be difficult for him to dance around the questions of Congress without revealing some plans for monetary policy , " said Lien .

The dollar slipped to 0.8969 Swiss francs from 0.8977 francs on Friday .

The pound weakened slightly against the dollar , the dollar bought 1.6401 compared with 1.6407 dollars , according to AFP .