Dollar up as Fed meeting nears, shares nudge higher

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar edged up against the yen and euro while European and Asian shares firmed after last week's tumbles on Monday, as investors hunkered down for the U.S. Federal Reserve's meeting later this week.
Uncertainty over the Fed's future policy course has triggered a sharp sell-off in broad risk assets in recent weeks and investors are hoping for some clarity on its intentions when it concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday.
After a 2.7 percent jump in Japan's Nikkei (.N225) had lifted Asian markets, European shares (.FTEU3) opened for the week up 0.5 percent as London's FTSE 100 (.FTSE), Paris's CAC-40 (.FCHI) and Frankfurt's DAX (.GDAXI) rose 0.5-0.7 percent.
The dollar (.DXY) was broadly stronger. The jump in the Nikkei saw the yen drop off last week's two-month high back to 95 yen to the dollar, while the greenback edged up to $1.3324 per euro.
"I think Bernanke is going to stress that any tapering off of the Fed's QE programs will dependent on the data flow but that it is still too soon at the moment to reduce the purchases," said Peter De Bruin, a senior economist at ABN Amro, adding the message should calm markets.

In the debt market, the German bund future was 31 ticks lower at 143.55 and peripheral euro zone bonds saw minor gains as the uncertainty ahead of Fed meeting capped trading volumes.

(Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Toby Chopra)