Japanese Yen Falls Today

The Japanese yen fell against majority of the world currencies on the rising risk appetites of the global and Japanese investors along with the extremely low probability for the rate hike by the central bank of Japan.

As almost always the case with the yen falling — the most gaining currencies are the ones with the highest interest rates set by central banks — i.e. the South African rand and the New Zealand dollar. Surveys of the Japanese financial companies show their urge to spend yens on buying foreign assets, including the assets nominated in high-yielding currencies.

Economy of Japan shows no signs of the previous crisis relief, that would allow the Bank of Japan to raise the interest rate, which is kept at 0.5% for quite a long time now. The yen needs a higher interest rate to see some appreciation against other major currencies. But the appreciation of the national currency is not in the government’s priorities, because it will certainly hurt the Japanese exporters. The rate decision will be released on December 20 and most likely it will be passive with the comments hinting that further decisions won’t be rising rates too.

Yen lost 0.4% and 0.2% to New Zealand dollar and South African rand respectively today. This was rather unexpected after the Nikkei index fell by 42 points this session. Usually, yen benefits from the stock markets drop. Today’s yen fall is determined more by the long-term projections of the investors.

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