USD/JPY with an advance on Wednesday

US dollar was trading on positive territory against the Japanese yen, marking the largest advance in a week, as market players focused on the minutes of Federal Reserves latest meeting, scheduled for release later today.

USD/JPY reached a session high at 97.66 at 5:31 GMT, after which the pair consolidated at 97.53. Support was likely to be received at August 20th low, 96.90, while resistance was to be encountered at August 14th high, 98.40.

Today the Federal Reserve Bank will publish the minutes of its meeting on July 30-31st, as it may provide clues whether a reduction of scale of stimulus was coming. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will hold its next meeting on September 17-18th and will probably consider a pare back of its easing program at that meeting, according to 65% of economists, participated in a survey by Bloomberg News on August 9-13th.

“The minutes could refocus market attention back on the prospect of Fed tapering,” said Peter Dragicevich, a currency economist in Sydney at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), cited by Bloomberg. “That could see the U.S. dollar rebound over the next few days.”

In the mean time, Japanese yen was trading higher against the greenback for a short period of time earlier on Wednesday, after Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority said it wanted to raise the severity level of a radioactive water leak at the Fukushima plant from 1 to 3 on a scale that reaches up to 7, Investing.com reported.

Elsewhere, the yen was slightly lower against the euro, with EUR/JPY cross up by 0.07% to trade at 130.61 at 8:41 GMT. GBP/JPY pair was also gaining, up by 0.22% for the day, to trade at 152.77 at 8:43 GMT. Ultimately, US dollar has strengthened 4.3% during this year, according to Bloomberg Correlation Weighted Indexes, tracking 10 developed-nation currencies. The Japanese currency has fallen 8.4%, while the euro gained 6.1%.