B: Barbara
As reported at 12:57 p.m. in Tokyo, the Japanese Yen slipped against major currencies in trading today, continuing the declines from yesterday. Dollar funding of Japanese investment trusts, to the tune of $2.4 billion, generally target foreign assets and tend to generate a frenzy of Yen selling. According to one bank trader from Japan, the trusts attract a tremendous amount of money, and the selling of Yen could be related to it. The U.S. Dollar rose to 95.98 Yen, a gain of .7%, and moving away from 93.85 Yen, a 2-month low touched on last week. The Euro saw a gain of .6%, to trade at 132.62 Yen, while the Australian Dollar gained .9% to trade at 74.54 Yen. The Australian Dollar and other high yielding currencies are putting pressure on the Yen on investor hope that the global recession is ebbing.
The U.S. Dollar was able to hold steady versus the Euro, retaining the gains made yesterday when U.S. share prices fell on worries that higher Treasury yields could slow the American economy more. In today’s trading, the Euro held at $1.3821, pulling back from $1.4051, a 5-month high touched on the EBS trading platform just last week.