Asian currencies weakened slightly against the dollar following a US interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve, which indicated further rises were likely as the American economy regained traction.
JAPANESE YEN: The yen slipped against the dollar during the week after the US Federal Reserve hiked interest rates and Fed minutes from an August meeting indicated further rate hikes would follow unabated.
The Japanese unit stood at 110.64-67 to the dollar at 5:00 pm on Friday (0800 GMT), from 109.73-76 a week earlier.
On Tuesday, Federal Reserve policymakers raised the federal funds rate a quarter of a percentage point to 1.75 percent, saying the US economy has "regained some traction" and no longer needs as much stimulus.
The Fed's statement repeated its stand that future rate increases are expected to come at "a pace that is likely to be measured."
But following the widely expected move, the Fed released minutes from its August 10 meeting, indicating "significant cumulative policy tightening likely would be needed."
"The minutes from the August meeting appear to eliminate any real chance that the monetary authority would be interrupting its tightening cycle any time soon," said Geoffrey Somes, an economist with Web-based research firm Economy.com.
After the August meeting minutes, short-term interest-rate futures contracts show hedgers seeing increased odds the Federal Reserve's current 1.75 percent target rate will be as high as 2.50 percent by the end of the central bank's March meeting.
"The yen was the most unpopular currency due to high oil prices and minutes released by the Federal Reserve," said Kikuko Takeda, currency analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR: The Australian dollar is likely to slip backwards next week as strong gains achieved on the back of weakness in the greenback evaporates, dealers said.
The Aussie ended the week at 71.21 US cents, up 1.25 US cents on the previous week.
But dealers said the Australian currency had already peaked earlier in the year at just over 80 US cents in February and was likely to fall as the US dollar rebounded.
"It's just US dollar weakness, but that's not unusual," Commonwealth Bank senior economist Michael Workman said of last week's gains.
NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR: New Zealand's dollar closed Friday worth 66.64 US cents, up from the 66.02 cents of a week earlier.
SINGAPORE DOLLAR: The dollar was at 1.6912 Singapore dollars on Friday from 1.6888 the previous week.
HONG KONG DOLLAR: Hong Kong's US-pegged dollar remained unchanged on Friday at 7.775.
INDONESIAN RUPIAH: The rupiah ended the week weaker at 9,115-9,125 to the dollar compared with 9,030-9,035 the previous week.
PHILIPPINE PESO: The peso dropped to 56.38 to the dollar on Friday afternoon from 56.21 to the dollar on September 17.
SOUTH KOREAN WON: The won closed at 1,149.50 won per dollar, compared with 1,146.70 won a week earlier, as the dollar gained strength against the yen.
TAIWAN DOLLAR: The Taiwan dollar fell 0.33 percent over the week to end at 33.981 against the greenback Friday. It finished at 33.868 a week ago.
THAI BAHT: The baht closed Friday trading at 41.38-40 to the dollar compared to the previous week's close of 41.28-30.
Comments
Comments are closed.