Yen lower vs dollar and euro on rumors Shinzo Abe administration was displeased with Kuroda comments

On Thursday the yen dipped against the dollar and the euro in Asia trade, as markets digested comments by the head of the Bank of Japan the previous session and as a person close to the matter suggested that Prime minister Shinzo Abe's administration was dissatisfied with Kuroda's comments.

"There is no asset bubble in Japan at this point," Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told the Lower House pf Parliament's Financial Affairs Committee Wednesday. He declined to comment on daily swings in the forex market but repeated foreign exchange rates "must reflect economic fundamentals."

He also added that "a rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board may not necessarily cause the dollar to appreciate and the yen to depreciate."

However, a person close to the Japanese government suggested Thursday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration was displeased with Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda’s comments, a remark that also helped nudge up the greenback.

USD/JPY rose 0.26% to 123.23 from 122.68 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar hit a high of 123.29 yen after the person told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Kuroda’s recent remarks on the yen were “careless” in nature.

The euro was at 139.29 yen, compared with 138.90 yen in New York and a one-week low of 138.44 overnight.

Elsewhere in the forex market, the New Zealand dollar plunged to a four-month low of 86.03 yen against the yen from around 88.35. NZD/JPY currently trades at 86.45999.

New Zealand’s central bank cut rates for the first time in four years and flagged the possibility of more cuts to come.

The official cash rate was lowered a quarter of a percentage point to 3.25% to help protect the export-reliant economy from tumbling commodity prices and growing risks of deflation.

EUR/USD was 0.10% lower to trade at 1.1313.