By: Barbara Zigah
The U.S. Dollar held stead in Asian trading today, even as the meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers sits for their first policy session in South Korea. Many investors speculate that there will be little progress regarding the question of aggressive currency devaluation.
Even the U.S. Treasury Secretary commented that this process is an ongoing one. As reported at 1:35 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the U.S. Dollar Index, a measure of the greenback’s strength against major currencies, rebounded slightly off of a 10-month trough but needs to break resistance at 77.60 to 77.65 .DXY in order to gain enough momentum to achieve a higher bounce.
The real meat of the issues at the G20 will be whether or not the Federal Reserve Bank will initiate additional quantitative easing measures, when they will do and by how much. Most major currencies are in a holding pattern as they wait for something definitive from the Fed. The common currency Euro rose against the U.S. Dollar, trading up .1% to $1.3934.
Against the Japanese Yen, the Euro fell .1% to 113.11 Yen with the majority of sell positions from institutional investors or hedge fund operators. Continued wariness over Japanese intervention is keeping the U.S. Dollar supported.