The yen fell from the highest level against the euro since 2002 on
speculation a rebound in stocks will slow the selling of
higher-yielding assets funded by low- cost loans in Japan's currency.
``Yen crosses are tracking equities,'' said John McCarthy, director of
currency trading at ING Financial Markets LLC in New York. ``Some
buyers may come in at a certain point after big one-way sell-offs in
the past few days.''
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 2.1 percent, rebounding from a
five-year low, as higher crude oil prices boosted energy shares.
The euro has lost 20 percent versus the dollar since touching the
all-time high of $1.6038 on July 15. The European economy may be headed
for a recession that could last two to three years, Finland's Finance
Minister Jyrki Katainen said yesterday in an interview on Bloomberg
Television.
Net selling of European stocks among institutional investors has been
three times higher than average over the past year, and foreign
investors account for most of the sales, according to Samarjit Shankar,
director of strategy for the global markets group in Boston at Bank of
New York Mellon, the world's largest custodial bank, with more than $23
trillion in assets under administration.
Sterling slid to the lowest level against the dollar in more than five
years after the Office for National Statistics said today that retail
sales in the U.K. declined 0.4 percent last month after rising 1.1
percent in August.