Sharjah24 – Reuters: The dollar hovered near a five-year high to the yen on Thursday, supported by a surge in U.S. Treasury yields on rising bets for a Federal Reserve rate hike by March.

The greenback stood at 116.115 yen, little changed from Wednesday, when it rallied back toward Tuesday's high of 116.355, lifted by more hawkish rhetoric from Fed official and a strong U.S. jobs report.

Anticipation of faster policy tightening dented riskier assets, with the British pound retreating from a near two-month high and cryptocurrencies tumbling toward multi-month lows.

Fed officials said the "very tight" U.S. labour market might warrant raising rates sooner, and indicated they could also reduce the central bank's overall asset holdings to tame high inflation - a process dubbed quantitative tightening (QT) -minutes of their Dec. 14-15 policy meeting showed.

In the wake of that, futures on the federal funds rate priced in a roughly 80% chance of a quarter-percentage-point Fed hike by its March meeting.