The dollar regained its footing by the New York afternoon following earlier selling against the euro, sterling and yen. A sluggish retail sales report for December was the catalyst for the greenback's drop to multi-year lows versus the yen at 106.62.

The December retail sales figure unexpectedly dropped by 0.4% versus a 1.2% increase from November, meanwhile the excluding autos report also fell by 0.2% from a 1.8% reading previously. The producer price fell by 0.1%, versus 3.2% a month earlier while the core reading slipped to 0.2% from 0.4%. The data reinforces expectations that the Fed will aggressively cut rates by 50-bp when it meets at the end of the month.

Retail sales