FOREX-Dollar, yen hold gains; high-yielders still bruised
November 20th, 2009 | by admin |* Investors close shorts in dollar and yen before year-end
* Shares soft after Wall St down, risk appetite capped
* But early selling of risk-currencies abates
* New Zealand dollar off 2-week low, Aussie off lows
By Satomi Noguchi
TOKYO, Nov 20 (Reuters) – The dollar and yen on Friday kepttheir broad gains made the previous day but investor selling ofhigher-yielding currencies slowed as profit-booking on theirrallies of the past few months eased up.
The Australian dollar edged back from early losses and theNew Zealand dollar climbed off a two-week low as activity inAsian trading time slowed.
But both currencies, which have been popular trades againstthe low-yielding dollar and yen this year, were still about 1.5percent down on the week after plunging the previous day wheninvestors cut long positions ahead of a three-day weekend inJapan and next week’s U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
“It’s a smaller version of what we saw yesterday. The riskcurrencies are still generally on the weak side but there’s beenvery little activity in the markets,” said Andrew Robinson, FXmarket strategist at Saxo Bank in Singapore.
“There are still some buyers on dips on the risk currenciesbut not to the extent there were two or three weeks ago.”
The dollar index was unchanged on the day at 75.246 .DXY,well above a 15-month low of 74.679 touched on Monday.
The euro slipped 0.1 percent to $1.4915 EUR=, still withtalk of double-no-touch options at $1.48-1.51 expiring later onFriday.
Traders said euro buying ahead of this was putting a bit of afloor under euro/yen but it could fall after the option expiryand take dollar/yen with it. The euro was down 0.3 percent at132.31 yen EURJPY=R after dipping close to its 200-day movingaverage at 132.13.
The Australian dollar, which dropped as much as 1.6 percentthe previous day to a two-week low of $0.9132, was holding at$0.9198 AUD=D4, little changed from late U.S. business but welloff a 15-month high of $0.9407 struck on Monday.
It got some help from a Japanese asset manager who boughtAussie dollars against the yen but was still down about 0.2percent on the day at 81.69 yen AUDJPY=R.
The New Zealand dollar extended Thursday’s fall of more than2 percent and hit a two-week low of $0.7256 before recoveringabove $0.7300 NZD=D4 to stand unchanged on the day. Continued…