Yen Gains on Bearish Stocks Session

The Japanese currency was one of the biggest winners together with the U.S. dollar in trading markets this Thursday, as stocks fell globally, declining appeal for higher-yielding currencies as risk aversion rose, favoring the safety profile of the yen, considered the top refuge currency in days of pessimism.

In a very risk averse session today all emergent market currencies backed down massively versus the Japanese yen that actually rose versus all 16 main traded currencies in foreign-exchange markets, posting a less significant advance only versus the U.S. dollar, which also benefited from today’s risk averse scenario.
The New Zealand dollar was one of the biggest losers versus the yen as the opposition party is diverging its opinions with the nation’s central bank, fact which could slow down implementing monetary policies in the country, declining attractiveness for the kiwi which still ranks among the top 3 performers this year in currency markets.

Analysts consider yen’s performance today as a result of a decline in risk appetite after a strong sentiment that was predominant yesterday. Volatility is playing a fundamental role these weeks in trading markets with mixed sessions of high and low levels of risk appetite determining the trends for the yen for the current and following sessions.

NZD/JPY traded at 64.89 as of 14:07 GMT from a previous rate of 66.61 yesterday. EUR/JPY traded at 131.99 from 133.50.

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