Yen Benefits from China’s Lending Restrictions

Demand for safety rose today as concerns among investors that Chinese lending limits announced this week by the nation’s government may impact the global economic performance, allowing the yen to beat all of the main traded currencies in foreign-exchange markets today.

The yen gained today versus greenback as reports in the world’s wealthiest country came slightly below forecasts, also showing a slow down in the inflation. The euro declined sharply versus the Japanese currency as concerns regarding Greek’s budget deficit are still affecting the outlook for the European currency, causing an outflow of capital towards the safety provided by yen-priced assets. China’s lending restrictions will affect not only the Asian economic region, but the economy in a global scale, as Chinese trading is well spread around the world, and these measures can slow down the economic recovery expected for 2010.

Traders became more risk averse with the new Chinese banking policy, and that’s positive for the yen, according to specialists. The yen had been trading at record lows versus commodity related currencies like the Canadian dollar and the side effects of Chinese statements gave a breather for the Japanese currency.

EUR/JPY traded at 130.57 as of 16:01 GMT from an intraday rate of 131.85. AUD/JPY declined to 83.83 from 84.80

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