LONDON (AFX) - The euro was slightly weaker in early trade from afternoon Tokyo levels, on the back of weak German GDP data and some profit-taking, dealers said. "Maybe the fact that the headline year-on-year rate was lower than expected has something to do with the weakness, but it (the euro) has been quite volatile this morning and was trading at 0.9140 earlier on," Daragh Maher, senior economist at ING Barings said. Michael Klawitter, a currency strategist at West LB said: "While clearing the 0.92 resistance on the back of the strong German Ifo index, euro-dollar soon ran into profit-taking as the market remains long euro while at the same time investors started to question whether the massive jump in the Ifo's expectation component will be sustainable. "Against this background we expect euro-dollar to stay roughly in the 0.91-0.92 trading range for the time being. German Q2 GDP growth which was flat on the quarter while the year-on-year rate declined sharply from 2.0 pct to 0.6 pct should hardly be euro supportive in itself. Hawkish comments by Bundesbank officials indicated that the chance of a rate cut on Aug 30 or Sept 13 may be smaller than generally priced in," he added. The yen was little changed in early London trade keeping its losses from Tokyo trade incurred by weak trade figures. "Exports have now fallen 14 pct in 4 months," Maher at ING said. Klawitter at West LB said: "The yen weakened following the much smaller than expected July trade surplus. Gains in dollar-yen have however been limited due to the negative sentiment of the dollar. We expect dollar-yen to range trade before moving higher on the back of yen weakness. Confirmation by S&P that Japanese life insurers will be considered as defaulting if they do not pay out guaranteed life policies, sets the tone for further bad news to come out of Japan. Last year five life insurers went bust."