The South Korean won and Singapore dollar rose almost 1 percent on Tuesday, cutting losses from last week's sell-off, but gains were checked as stocks took another beating on growing wariness about emerging markets.
The South Korean won rose as high as 942.5 per dollar, mirroring a reversal in the Japanese yen.
The Singapore dollar rose to a high of 1.5780 per dollar, recouping some of the losses that saw the currency fall to 1.5970 on Monday from an 8-1/2-year high of 1.5594 on May 10.
The Malaysian ringgit, Taiwan dollar and Thai baht each gained as much as three-quarters of a percent.
Among the biggest losers in last week's drubbing, the Indonesian rupiah rose 0.9 percent to 9,240 per dollar. The Philippine peso and Indian rupee were little changed.
Traders interpreted the reversal in Asian currencies as part of the ongoing emerging market volatility that has been caused by worries about commodity-price-led inflation and on bets that US Federal Reserve would keep raising interest rates.
"Globally, the stock markets are very unstable," said Roh Sang Chil, currency trader at Kookmin Bank in Seoul.
"The volatility is increasing because nobody has any strong views of Fed interest rates and the global dollar direction."
The one-month implied volatility on the Singapore dollar, one of Asia's most freely traded currencies, rose to 6.05 percent, its highest level since January 2005. The implied one-month volatility on the yen scaled to 11.1 percent, its highest in almost two years.
Roh said foreign investors were dumping South Korean stocks and repatriating funds by buying dollars, even though there was no change in the country's fundamentals. This was keeping the won under pressure.
Local exporters were preventing the currency from going lower as many came in with dollar sales at levels around 960 per dollar, he said.
Foreign investors were net sellers of South Korean shares for a 10th straight session on Tuesday and net sellers of Taiwan shares for an eighth consecutive session.
Benchmark indexes were down as much as 1 percent or more in Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Taiwan, but turned positive in some markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
In India, a pullout of foreign investors saw the benchmark index at one stage on Monday down more than 20 percent from its record high set on May 11. The index recouped some of its losses on Tuesday, helping support the rupee, but was still over 15 percent off its peak.
Some analysts said that with the continued unloading of emerging market stocks, there was little sign that the broad-based downturn in the region's currencies was over.
"You've got to admit that things are not looking good," said Mirza Baig, currency strategist at Deutsche Bank in Singapore.
"The equities market sentiment is not good. Markets are extremely sensitive to risk appetite. It doesn't look like we're at a turnaround point."
Baig said last week's sell-off did lighten the positions of those who had sold the US dollar against emerging market currencies. Moreover, there was little evidence from recent data that the US economy was gathering steam.