The US dollar was trading firmer against rival currencies including the yen and the euro as hedge funds covered short dollar positions ahead of a raft of US economic data this week, dealers said. Among US data scheduled for release include the July consumer confidence tomorrow, the Federal Reserve's Beige Book on Wednesday and second-quarter GDP on Friday. Masahiro Yamashita, chief currency analyst at Fisco, said Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's less hawkish remarks to Congress last week continued to cap the dollar's advance. "Some 90 pct had expected a rate hike at the Fed meeting in August, but the yield support for the dollar fell to around 40 pct after Bernanke's semi-annual testimony last Wednesday," he said. At 1.45 pm Tokyo (04450 GMT), the dollar was at 116.47 yen, up from 116.35 earlier in Sydney while the euro eased to 1.2656 usd from 1.2676. Concerns about further tightening by China's central bank also kept the dollar in check, traders said. The People's Bank of China announced Friday that it was raising the reserve requirement -- the amount of cash commercial banks must keep on deposit with the central bank -- by half a percentage point from Aug 15. "But as the Bank of Japan doesn't appear to be willing to raise its key overnight call rate target soon after abandoning its zero rate policy, traders won't push the Japanese currency up decisively," Yamashita said. BoJ governor Toshihiko Fukui has said the central bank is not planning to raise interest rates consecutively, assuring the market future rate adjustments will be gradual and slow, after raising its overnight call rate target to 0.25 pct from zero on July 14