LONDON (AFX) - Major currencies remained rangebound in quiet late morning trade with activity subdued by a national holiday in the US, a dearth of data and a lack of news from President George W Bush's visit to Japan, dealers said. Little excitement was generated by the outcome of talks between Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, though a Bush gaffe did provide a short-lived boost to the dollar. Bush said he had discussed "devaluation" with Koizumi when he meant to say "deflation". "It was a non-event," said Paul Mackel, currency strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. "Everyone's paying attention but dollar/yen will have to wait until after the meeting for renewed repatriation flows and anti-deflation measures." BNP Paribas' chief currency strategist Hans Redeker said dollar/yen could fall back over the next four to six weeks on repatriation flows back to Japan. After that, he reckons that there will then be a strong upturn to around the 145-150 yen mark. "The only thing holding dollar/yen back is repatriation," he said. Euro/dollar was trading in a tight range as well. According to Bear Stearns' currency economist Steve Barrow, "the sum total of possible market-moving events today" involves speeches from the European Central Bank's Guy Quaden and Ernst Welteke. "We expect them to pursue the same line, namely that rates are at appropriate levels right now and that the euro has the potential to appreciate," said Barrow. Rob Hayward, currency strategist at ABN Amro, said there's some room for euro appreciation over the next few days following last Friday's IMM data. "These showed that euro positions are fairly flat," he said. "There's some scope to build some euro long positions." Meanwhile, sterling shed some of the gains garnered last week, but ABN Amro's Hayward said a bout of selling in a thin market was exaggerating the moves.