Asian currencies fall for second week on yen slide, dollar rally
By Bloomberg
Asian currencies declined for a second week as a slide in the yen threatened to crimp export competitiveness of South Korea and Taiwan.
The won led losses in the region as the yen tumbled to a seven-year low after the Bank of Japan unexpectedly expanded stimulus last week to combat deflation. Asian currencies fell as the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the greenback against 10 peers, reached a record high today. U.S. employers probably added 235,000 jobs last month, versus 248,000 in September, a Bloomberg survey showed before today’s data.
“The momentum of the dollar and the yen dragged the market lower across the region,” said Saktiandi Supaat, head of foreign-exchange research at Malayan Banking Bhd. in Singapore. “The move could be overdone and may be retraced, but that would depend on what the U.S. payrolls data show.”
South Korea’s won declined 2.3 percent from Oct. 31, the most since June 2013, to 1,093.43 per dollar in Seoul, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The currency reached 9.39 against the yen on Nov. 3, the strongest since August 2008, before closing at 9.488 today. Malaysia’s ringgit fell 1.7 percent to 3.3457, the steepest drop since September 2013.
The Thai baht lost 0.8 percent this week to 32.87 per dollar and Taiwan’s currency dropped 0.8 percent to 30.716. The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the region’s most-traded currencies except the yen, declined 0.4 percent.
Yen Impact
The Bank of Korea said in a Nov. 3 statement that it’s closely monitoring the weak yen’s impact on South Korea’s overseas sales, economy and financial system. Companies including Hyundai Motor Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. compete with Japanese rivals in international markets. Taiwan’s electronics exporters such as HTC Corp. also compete against firms from Japan and Korea.
The ringgit weakened for a fourth week as crude prices slid to the lowest level since 2011. Oil accounted for 30 percent of Malaysia’s state revenue last year.
“Malaysia is the only net oil exporter in the region, and is most affected by oil prices,” said Nizam Idris, head of strategy for fixed income and currencies at Macquarie Bank Ltd. in Singapore.
The rupiah weakened 0.7 percent to 12,173 per dollar this week as official data showed Indonesia’s third-quarter economic growth was the slowest pace in five years.
The Philippine peso depreciated 0.3 percent to 45.045, the Indian rupee fell 0.3 percent to 61.545 and China’s yuan declined 0.1 percent to 6.1185.
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