US dollar mixed amid light trading

The US dollar traded mixed against major currencies on Wednesday as the deadlocked "fiscal cliff" negotiation weighed on the market and trading remained light. The two parties failed to strike a deal on taxation policies before Christmas and the talks will resume on Thursday. Investors were reluctant to make bets before a solution is presented. A report released by S&P Dow Jones Indices on Wednesday showed the Standard &Poor's/Case Shiller home prices index for 20 major metropolitan areas slipped 0.1 percent in October from September but rose 4.3 percent from a year ago, indicating that the real estate market is still on the track of sustained recovery. The dollar surged to the highest level against the yen since September of 2010 after Japan's newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe claimed his post and announced members of new cabinet on Wednesday. Abe repeated that he would push for more monetary and fiscal measures and intervene yen's exchange rate. Japan's central bank last week expanded its asset purchase program to 101 trillion yen (about 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars) from about 91 trillion yen ( about 1.08 trillion U.S. dollars). In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.3221 dollars from 1.3183 dollars of the previous session and the British pound climbed to 1.6129 dollars from 1.6122. The dollar slightly dropped to 0.9133 Swiss francs from 0.9158 and went up to 0.9944 Canadian dollars from 0.9942. The dollar bought 85.63 Japanese yen, higher than 84.84 in the previous session.