The yen languished near its weakest in decades on Thursday though the threat of intervention from Japanese authorities kept investors leery of pushing the currency to a new low, while Asian stocks rose ahead of a key U.S. inflation reading.

Markets were largely rangebound ahead of Friday's much-anticipated U.S. core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index data, the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation. Few markets will be open to digest the new reading, however, given the long Easter weekend in many countries.