The yen was strong on Tuesday against the dollar and the euro after Finance Minister of Japan, Hirohisa Fujii said he will not enter the foreign-exchange market to stop yen's rise.

Elizabeth Gregory, a markets strategist in Geneva at ACM Advanced Currency Markets, said: "Japanese officials are not entirely clear on how they should reign in the market and that’s really played out in terms of the direction of the yen. The commentary has been a bit muddled. They started off by saying it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a strong yen and that caused the market to fly off in one direction.”

The yen strengthened to 90.236 per dollar and to 135.26 per euro. The euro was at $1.4969. The UK currency was at $1.6414 and 91.24 pence per euro.