Dollar steady, central bank meetings

TOKYO (Reuters) – The dollar was steady against its peers on Monday, as market participants battled it out.

Central banks in focus include the Bank of Japan, which ends a two-day meeting on Tuesday, and the Federal Reserve, which concludes its policy meeting on Wednesday. The Bank of England also makes a policy decision on Thursday.

The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies. Upbeat second quarter U.S. gross domestic product data failed to lift the greenback, as markets had mostly priced in strong figures.

The U.S. currency was 0.01 percent higher at 111.125 yen according to 0.2 percent on Friday.

Masafumi Yamamoto, chief forex strategist at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo, said investors will be more interested in U.S.

"On the other hand, the two-year Treasury yield is rising, underscoring the market. This is limiting the dollar's losses, the movements are likely to be limited ahead of the BOJ meeting, "Yamamoto said.

The two-year Treasury yield rose to a decade-high of 2.69 percent toward the end of last week.

The financial markets are keen to see the BOJ is considering taking steps to make its mbadive stimulus program more sustainable.

Speculation on what the BOJ might do including possibly adjusting its yield-curve control and exchange-traded fund (ETF) buying schemes. The dollar has eased back from a six-month high above 113.00 yen scaled on July 19 such speculation.

"While various speculations are being made over the BOJ, we believe they will stand on our monetary policy. "The focus is for the BOJ hints at future policy change," said Shin Kadota, senior strategist at Barclays in Tokyo.

"But it's hard to guess what the BOJ will do," he said. "

The euro was flat at $ 1.1652, after gaining modestly on Friday.

The pound dipped 0.05 percent to $ 1.3102.

Sterling posted its third straight weekly last week. It will be looking for some relief on Thursday, when the BoE is widely expected to loom up for the second time since the 2008 financial crisis.

The Australian dollar declined 0.15 percent to $ 0.7393, trimming some of its gains after rising roughly 0.4 percent on a broadly based dollar.