The Australian dollar stumbled lower on Friday as a burst of selling against the yen upset what had been a firm session for the high-yielding currency.
Traders said a Japanese bank caught a thin market unawares when it sold a large chunk of Aussie dollars for yen, perhaps as a safe-haven play ahead of a long holiday break.
Japanese markets are off until January 4 and investors may have been wary of being short of yen, particularly as the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto threatened a bout of instability in the region.
The Aussie skidded as full yen to 98.93 yen, leaving behind a six-week peak of 100.20. The yen also climbed to 113.46 per dollar as geo-political uncertainty counted against riskier carry trades funded in the cheap Japanese currency. The local dollar was in turn dragged down to $0.8732, from an early high of $0.8792, and $0.8756 late here on Thursday.
"Everything had been real quiet until this guy dumped a parcel of Aussie/yen on the market at the Tokyo fix. Knocked it from 99.80 to 99.00 in no time," said a trader at a local bank. "Asian stock markets are also weaker and that tends to generate a knee-jerk move out of carry trades, which hurts the Aussie," he added.
The local dollar had started the day firmer on the US currency after soft US economic data added to expectations of more interest rate cuts there. A very weak 0.1 percent rise in US durable goods, combined with reports major US banks could still suffer large write-offs from subprime losses, also sent equities sliding.
Asian stocks were further unsettled by the political uncertainty in Pakistan, which generated some safe-haven flows into sovereign bonds. Australian three-year bond futures added 0.005 points to 93.150, nudging them away from a five-year trough of 93.105. The 10-year bond contract firmed 0.010 points to 93.610.
Australian yields remained far above those in the United States, some 221 basis points for 10-year bonds, offering the Aussie dollar support on a straight interest rate play. Geo-political jitters also benefited gold, which climbed to $327, and drove crude oil to near $97 a barrel. The CRB index gained 0.4 percent to 359.78, adding to recent hefty gains and boding well for Australia's export earnings from resources.