Dollar edges up after falling on recession fears

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Wednesday's dollar slide in New York followed surprisingly weak U.S. durable goods orders.

The data fuelled concerns that the world's biggest economy is either in, or tipping toward, a recession, after U.S. reports showed on Tuesday that consumer confidence hitting a five-year low, while house prices fell further across much of the country.

The dollar had been recovering from record lows against the euro and Swiss franc in the past week as investors booked profits on the currency's slide ahead of the first quarter-end, while it was also helped by the Fed's efforts to ease the credit crisis.

The U.S. central bank has slashed the benchmark fed funds rate to 2.25 percent from 5.25 percent just over six months ago, even as the ECB has kept rates steady at 4 percent.

U.S. short-term interest rate futures now indicate investors see around a 40 percent chance of the Fed cutting interest rates by 50 basis points in April. A 25-basis-point rate cut is fully priced in.

Against the yen, the dollar was nearly flat at 99.00 yen after falling as low as 98.56 on EBS earlier in the session. The U.S. currency hit a 13-year low of 95.77 yen on EBS early last week.

The euro slid 0.4 percent to 156.30 yen.

Tokyo's Nikkei share average .N225 ended down 0.8 percent on the day. well above session lows.

(Additional reporting by Satomi Noguchi; editing by Gary Crosse)

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