Most Asian currencies weaken

Most Asian currencies fell against the dollar as regional stocks tracked Wall Street lower, but the high-yielding Indonesian rupiah rose on suspected dollar selling by the central bank. The Philippine peso fell 0.7 percent to 47.64 per dollar as risk aversion rose after US stocks slid on Monday on more evidence that the year-long recession would keep eating into corporate profits.
"The dollar is stronger across the board and it's also because of what happened on Wall Street that led to risk aversion," said a trader in Manila. "So people are going for the dollar right now and selling the peso."
One trader said the peso was also hurt after the Philippine central bank governor told Reuters on Monday he saw room for more interest rate cuts as inflation eases and economic growth slows. The Malaysian ringgit fell a third of a percent to 3.491 per dollar.
"It's due to the firmer dollar against majors in overnight trading and the bias (on the dollar) is up due to domestic year-end demand," said a trader in Kuala Lumpur. The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan fell 2.5 percent, following a slide in US stocks on Monday.
Bucking the regional trend, the Indonesian rupiah gained 0.9 percent to 11,000 per dollar on dollar selling by state-owned banks. "State banks offered at 11,000 on behalf of BI (the central bank) in the morning," said a trader in Jakarta.
The Chinese yuan fell as far as 6.8540 per dollar, its weakest level since December 11, after the central bank cut interest rates on Monday, the fifth rate cut since mid-September. The People's Bank of China cut the benchmark one-year bank deposit rate and lending rate by 27 basis points to 2.25 percent and 5.31 percent, respectively.
Yu Song, economist at Goldman Sachs, predicted in a note that the one-year lending rate would be cut to around 3.6 percent by the end of 2009 and the deposit rate would be cut to one percent.
Most analysts expect the yuan to face moderate selling pressures in the near term as the economy slows and the dollar firms, but the authorities have made clear they would not push down the yuan's value for the sake of boosting exports. Elsewhere, the dollar held firm against the yen on deepening concerns over the Japanese economy but fell against the euro as investors awaited a slew of economic data.