Yen Gains on Volatility and Concerns About Europe & China

The Japanese yen surged on the concerns that Ireland’s bailout wouldn’t be able to contain the sovereign-debt problems from contaminating other European countries.

The Standard & Poor’s signaled that it may downgrade Portugal’s credit rating as the country hasn’t increased its economic growth to outweigh the impact of the planned spending cuts. The investors also shunned the riskier assets, preferring the safer ones, because of the high volatility on the markets. The JPMorgan Chase & Co. G7 Volatility Index climbed as much as 2.1 percent to 13.14, the highest level since July 5th.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the MSCI World Index both dropped 0.6 percent. The yen also gained on the speculation that China may increase its interest rates to battle the inflation. Some economists say the nation need to increase the rates by 2 percentage points to slow the fast economic growth.

USD/JPY traded at 83.60 as of 00:15 GMT after it dropped on the previous trading session from 84.25 to 83.68. EUR/JPY slumped from 110.60 to 108.65. GBP/JPY traded at about 130.18 after it went down from 131.19 to 130.21.

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