The South Korean won and the Taiwan dollar firmed on Tuesday, leading gains in most emerging Asian currencies as investors hoped for more inflows to the region, but the mood remained cautious as the eurozone's debt crisis showed few signs of easing. The Taiwan dollar rose on foreign funds inflows to the island's stocks and bonds, while the won found support from bids from offshore funds.
BNP Paribas' currency strategist Thio Chin Loo in Singapore said she doubts if emerging Asian currencies could continue to benefit from such inflows. "MSCI AxJ is still below where it was at the beginning of last September when large outflows occurred," said Andy Ji, Asian currency strategist for Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Singapore, referring to MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan.
The index rose 1.7 percent on Tuesday, but is still down nearly 10 percent from the high of September 2011. Euro/won slightly rose to around 1,478.US dollar/Taiwan dollar slid on inflows for Taiwanese stocks and bonds, while the central bank has been spotted buying the pair with oil companies joining the bids, dealers said.
Taiwanese insurers also sell US dollar/Taiwan dollar's non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) in offshore market to prepare for further falls in spot, they added. Dollar/Philippine peso fell as interbank speculators added short positions. The pair had initially found support around 44.00 after data showing the country's exports in November slid for seventh month in a row.
Dollar/ringgit and US dollar/Singapore dollar fell on stop-loss dollar sales and as interbank speculators built up short positions, dealers said. Investors dumped dollar/ringgit and US dollar/Singapore dollar to cut losses when the first pair broke through 3.1450 and the second breached 1.2900, dealers said.