The dollar resumed its slide against the yen and other Asian currencies Thursday, leading a number of central banks in the region to step into the market to smooth out the volatile trading and slow the dollar's fall. The dollar was trading at 114.00 yen on the Tokyo foreign exchange market at 3 p.m., down 0.11 yen from late Wednesday in New York. After rising on Japanese importers' buying, the dollar gave up its gains and fell to an intraday low of 113.99 yen, as short-term speculators sold on concerns over the U.S. trade balance data for November, due out later Thursday. Foreign exchange traders said the central banks of South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore bought U.S. dollars Thursday, but the dollar still sank against many Asian currencies. None of those central banks publicly comment on their market operations. The defensive actions by Asian authorities come as their currencies staged huge rallies against the dollar in the opening days of 2006. "Global risk money is flowing into Asia," said Tohru Sasaki, chief foreign exchange strategist at JPMorgan Chase Bank of Tokyo, reflecting widespread investor optimism on the prospects for Asian stock markets, which have handily outperformed the U.S. and Europe. While the U.S. trade deficit is expected to narrow somewhat from last month, the currency market is becoming more sensitive to the trade gap now that the U.S. interest rate-hike cycle is approaching an end, traders said. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires expect the November trade deficit to have narrowed to $66.5 billion from a record $68.9 billion in the previous month. "Given the market's weak-dollar bias, there's a risk of the U.S. unit falling further on a wider-than-expected trade deficit," said Teruhisa Tsuji, a trader at Mizuho Corporate Bank's foreign exchange division. The euro rose against the dollar, climbing to $1.2142 from $1.2123 late Wednesday in New York, on expectations that European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet may hint at raising interest rates in the future in a press conference to be held later today, traders said. The ECB is widely expected to keep rates steady at its policy meeting Thursday, after hiking rates by 25 basis points to 2.25 percent last month. But many market players believe Trichet may make some hawkish remarks given recent positive euro-zone economic data