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From Bloomberg.com
The euro rose, ending a two-day decline, after China’s Vice Premier Wang Qishan said the nation had taken “concrete action” to help the European Union with its debt problems.
The single currency strengthened against 15 of its 16 major counterparts on speculation investments by China, which holds a record $2.65 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves, will ease Europe’s sovereign fiscal crisis and boost the allure of assets in the region. The yen reached a one-week high versus the dollar on speculation Japanese exporters bought the currency to bring home funds before the end of the year.
“The comments would be a good Christmas present for the euro if Asian support for the EU continues into next year,” said Kurt Magnus, executive director of foreign-exchange sales at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Sydney. “There’s a lot of people looking to sell euro and go into 2011 with a core short position and there’s no way that you would be short euro,” if China continued to support the region, he said.
The euro climbed to $1.3171 as of 1:05 p.m. in Tokyo from $1.3131 in New York yesterday, when it dropped to $1.3095, the lowest since Dec. 2. The common currency rose to 110.17 yen from 110 yen yesterday, when it fell to 109.58, the weakest since Dec. 7. The yen strengthened to 83.64 per dollar from 83.77 after reaching 83.57, the most since Dec. 14.
China “has taken concrete action to help some EU members counter the sovereign-debt crisis,” Wang said in Beijing today.
Ratings Reviews
The euro yesterday fell to two-week lows against the dollar and yen on speculation some European nations will struggle to raise funds amid a slew of credit-rating and outlook changes.
Moody’s Investors Service last week cut Ireland’s debt rating by five levels and put Greece on review for a possible “multi-notch” downgrade. It said Dec. 15 it may lower Spain’s creditworthiness. Standard & Poor’s is reviewing its assessments of Ireland, Portugal and Greece.
“We should expect a string of potential multi-notch downgrades in late January and early February,” said Robert Rennie, chief currency strategist in Sydney at Westpac Banking Corp., the nation’s second-biggest lender. “We get a number of reviews at the end of January, a heavy auction schedule and a shorter month due to holidays at the beginning and end of the month. We’re surprised that euro isn’t lower.”
The common currency will advance to $1.33 by the first quarter of 2011, according to the median forecast of 45 analysts polled by Bloomberg News.
Exporter buying
The yen strengthened to a one-week high versus the dollar on speculation that Japanese exporters purchased the nation’s currency as year-end approaches.
“There’s talk of Japanese exporters buying their currency,” said Takashi Kudo, general manager of market information services at NTT SmartTrade Inc., a unit of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. “This may be related to seasonal factors such as the end of the month and year.”
Japan’s large manufacturers expect the yen to trade at an average of 86.47 per dollar in the year through March, the highest level since the Bank of Japan’s Tankan business- confidence survey included the yen-forecast question in 1996, compared with the 89.66 predicted in September, the survey showed on Dec. 15.
Fumio Ohtsubo, president of Panasonic Corp., the world’s largest maker of plasma televisions, said this month the yen’s appreciation is making it tougher for the company to compete with its South Korean rivals, such as Samsung Electronics Co. The yen has risen 11 percent versus the won this year.
New Zealand’s currency gained for a second day as prices rose for commodities, which are a majority of its exports, and Asian equities advanced. Copper climbed for a third day from London to Shanghai and oil rose. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of regional shares added 1 percent. |
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发表于 2010-12-21 12:50 AM
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