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By Bloomberg

The dollar remained weaker versus the yen after minutes Wednesday from the Federal Reserve’s January meeting showed policy makers argued for keeping interest rates near record lows longer due to risks facing the economy.

The greenback fell against all its Group-of-10 peers except the Aussie after committee members pointed to the dollar’s strength, international flashpoints from Greece to Ukraine, and slow wage growth as weakening the case for the first rate increase since 2006. Australia’s currency weakened after the Wall Street Journal reported Standard & Poor’s as saying the country’s AAA rating could face risks in the event of a global economic shock.

“Expectations for a June rate increase by the Fed are retreating,” said Junichi Ishikawa, a market analyst at IG Markets Securities Ltd. in Tokyo. “The strong dollar story may be coming to the point where it has to be reevaluated.”

The dollar fell 0.1 percent to 118.68 yen as of 2:22 p.m. in Tokyo from Wednesday, when it slid 0.4 percent. The greenback traded at $1.1413 per euro from $1.1397. The Aussie fell 0.3 percent to 77.87 U.S. cents.

“Many participants indicated that their assessment of the balance of risks associated with the timing of the beginning of policy normalization had inclined them toward keeping the federal funds rate at its effective lower bound for a longer time,” according to the record of the Jan. 27-28 Federal Open Market Committee meeting released in Washington.

The main lending rate has been in a range of zero to 0.25 percent since 2008.

“Their concern about a strong dollar came through, and that puts summer for a rate hike as a very unlikely timetable -- we’re probably looking at the fall,” Alfonso Esparza, senior currency analyst at Oanda Corp., said by phone from Toronto. “They don’t want to raise rates too soon and have the strong dollar and higher rates damp the growth of the U.S. economy.”

Dollar Rally

The dollar has rallied since the FOMC said after its last meeting it “can be patient” as it considers when to raise the benchmark interest rate, even as it described the labor market as “strong.” A report the following week showed payrolls rose more than forecast in January to cap the strongest three-month gain in 17 years.

Federal fund futures traded on the CME Group Inc. exchange give an 18 percent chance the central bank will lift rates at their policy meeting in June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That is down from 25 percent on Feb. 17.