The yen rose, heading for weekly gains against the dollar and the euro, as signs of a deepening global economic slump prompted investors to pare holdings of higher-yielding assets funded in Japan.
Japan's currency also climbed this week against the Australian and New Zealand dollars on speculation a Group of 20 nations summit starting today will fail to reach a consensus on resolving the credit crisis. The euro headed for a weekly drop after a government report showed Europe's economy fell into its first recession in 15 years in the third quarter, paving the way for deeper cuts to interest rates.
``This is a difficult environment for risky assets so there's still upside for the yen in coming weeks,'' said Marcus Hettinger, a currency strategist in Zurich at Credit Suisse Group. ``The yen is still undervalued. It is being supported by expectations that interest rates will come down globally and in Japan there is less scope for lower interest rates because they are already very low.''
The yen typically rises when demand falls for so-called carry trades, where investors borrow in currencies with low interest rates and buy assets in nations with higher rates.
U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday urged leaders of the world's biggest economies not to abandon free-market capitalism following the seizure in credit markets. G-20 leaders including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have used the crisis to demand greater government control of markets and to attack the U.S. for failing to rein in investors and speculators.
Leaders of G-20 countries gather in Washington to debate proposals ranging from curbing executive pay and restraining hedge funds to raising capital requirements for banks after financial institutions worldwide lost $958 billion on securities tied to U.S. mortgages.
``No one is betting on volatility going down,'' said Shinichi Takasaka, manager of foreign exchange and financial products trading in Tokyo at Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp., a unit of Japan's largest publicly listed bank. ``I don't see any practical plan coming out of the G-20. That's part of the reason why the yen is rising.''
``We had such a big move yesterday, Japanese exporters are likely to buy the yen on the cheap,'' said Osao Iizuka, head of foreign-exchange trading at Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co. in Tokyo. ``People are also eyeing the G-20 meeting.''
Gross domestic product in the 15 euro nations shrank 0.2 percent from the previous three months, when it also contracted 0.2 percent, the European Union's Luxembourg-based statistics office said today. The two quarters of contraction -- the result of this year's surges in the cost of credit, the euro and oil prices -- mark the first recession since the single currency was introduced almost a decade ago.
``European GDP will confirm the extent of the damage,'' Hans-Guenter Redeker, the London-based global head of currency strategy at BNP Paribas SA, France's biggest bank, wrote in a research note yesterday. ``The BOE might continue to cut rates at a fast pace. We expect sterling to come under further significant downward pressure.''