FOREX-Dollar softer as sentiment recovers on vaccine hopes and deals

* Graphic: World FX rates in 2020 https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E

By Hideyuki Sano
TOKYO, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The dollar dipped against riskier
currencies on Tuesday as hopes for a COVID-19 vaccine and big
corporate deals improved investor appetite for assets such as
the yuan and the euro.
The dollar index =USD dipped to 93.029, slipping further
from a one-month high of 93.664 touched last Wednesday, with its
low last week of 92.695 seen as an immediate support.
The euro inched up to $1.1867 EUR= , having gained for four
straight sessions until Monday.
Against the safe-haven yen, the dollar traded at 105.73 yen
JPY= , having touched a two-week low of 105.55 yen on Monday.
Helping sentiment, AstraZeneca AZN.L resumed British
clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine, one of the most
advanced in development while Pfizer Inc PFE.N and BioNTech SE
22UAy.F proposed expanding their Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine
trial. "It was uplifting that Pfizer has made clear a target of
vaccines. As risk assets bounced back, the dollar has lost
momentum," said Kyosuke Suzuki, director of forex at Societe
Generale.
Wall Street shares bounced back also as several
multi-billion dollar deals -- including Nvidia's NVDA.O
purchase of chip designer Arm and a deal between Oracle ORCL.N
and China's ByteDance on TikTok -- lifted confidence.
The British pound bounced back to $1.2851 GBP=D4 ,
following a fall of 3.66% last week, showing limited reaction
after the UK government won an initial Parliamentary vote on its
controversial bill to violate the Brexit deal with the European
Union. Still, traders said the currency looks vulnerable as the EU
warns British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's bill would collapse
trade talks and propel the United Kingdom towards a messy
Brexit.
Elsewhere, the offshore Chinese yuan hit a 16-month high of
6.8053 yuan per dollar on Monday and last traded at 6.8098
CNH= .
China's retail sales and industrial output data for August
due later in the day is its immediate focus.
The yuan's strength helped to lift MSCI emerging market
currency index .MIEM00000CUS to a six-month high.
The Australian dollar slipped 0.2% to $0.7270 AUD=D4 , as
odds narrowed for further monetary policy easing by the
country's central bank. Traders also look to central bank policy meetings in the
United States on Wednesday and in Japan and Britain on Thursday.
In particular, this week's Federal Reserve meeting will be
its first since Chairman Jerome Powell unveiled a shift toward
greater tolerance of inflation, effectively pledging to keep
interest rates low for longer.
Projections from Fed policymakers that inflation will remain
below 2% in their economic forecasts, to be extended to 2023
this time, could strengthen expectations that interest rates
will stay low for a long period of time, analysts say.