China's yuan slipped in offshore forwards on Friday and some Asian regionals fell after being sold by speculators disappointed with Chinese President Hu Jintao's comments on the currency during his US visit.
The Thai baht fell a quarter of a percent and the Philippine peso hit a 1-1/2 month trough of 51.71 per dollar.
But the Indonesian rupiah, South Korean won and Taiwan dollar were supported by foreign investment inflows. The won rose to about 946 per dollar, just shy of the 8-1/2-year peak of 944 struck on Wednesday.
"It is a disappointment, undoubtedly. The easiest thing would have been for dollar/China to have made it below 8 and it could not even do that," said Claudio Piron, J.P. Morgan Chase's currency strategist, referring to Hu's statements while in Washington.
Traders had speculated that the bigger gains allowed in the yuan by the Chinese authorities earlier this month were aimed at pushing it through the 8-per-dollar mark before Hu's visit. But the yuan peaked at around 8.0022 per dollar on April 10. It was traded on Friday between 8.0140 and 8.0180.
Traders had been expecting that Hu's meeting with US President George W. Bush on Thursday would result in a commitment to a faster appreciation of the yuan. Hu said China would continue to liberalise the yuan regime but gave no specifics.
That led to the yuan being sold in offshore forwards markets.
But speculative positions in the Asian currencies were small, Piron said, and hence any disappointment with Hu's comments was unlikely to result in a big sell-off.
"If anything, the risk gets skewed to the other direction and we could see trade tensions and protectionism measures coming through.
That is more of a slow-burning fuse and a Q3/Q4 risk to Asia and, potentially, currency tensions," Piron said.
Other analysts said the selling of the Asian currencies would be limited ahead of the Group of Seven nations' meeting that starts on Friday and IMF meetings on the weekend.
Craig Chan, a currency strategist with the Royal Bank of Scotland, said equity flows into South Korean and Taiwan equity markets had been strong, underpinning those currencies, but suspicion that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) was intervening had capped the Singapore dollar.
Taiwan's stock market data showed foreigners have invested nearly a net $4.3 billion in the country's equity market so far in April.
The Singapore dollar stopped short of hitting 1.6000 per US dollar and stayed close to Wednesday's peak around 1.5960, which was its strongest in nearly 8 years.
The rupiah owed its strength to comments by Indonesia's chief economic minister Boediono on Thursday, that the authorities would let market forces guide the currency and that tight monetary policy would soon be relaxed, Chan said.
The rupiah matched Thursday's high of 8,860 per dollar, its strongest since July 2004, before settling around 8,890/8,895.
It is Asia's top performer this year, with gains of more than 10 percent.
"Boediono opened the gates for more appreciation. That is stimulating more bond related inflows and pushing the equity market to record highs," Chan said.