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Thursday 13 June 2013

Dollar slumps vs. yen amid central bank uncertainty

The dollar tumbled to two-and-a-half month lows against the broadly stronger yen on Thursday and equities markets slumped as fears over the future of central bank stimulus sparked widespread risk aversion.

During European late morning trade, the dollar fell to its lowest level since April 4 against the yen, with USD/JPY falling 1.67% to 94.41 after touching lows of 93.80.

European shares fell sharply Thursday morning following sharp falls in Japanese equities overnight as concerns over the prospect of an end to central bank stimulus fuelled a broad based sell-off in risk assets.

Earlier this week the Bank of Japan disappointed expectations for measures to ease volatility in the government bond market. 

The BoJ’s lack of action, along with expectations that the Federal Reserve will begin to scale back its bond buying program fuelled safe haven inflows in to the yen and weakened the dollar.

Market sentiment was also hit after the World Bank revised down its forecast for global growth this year to 2.2% from 2.4% at the beginning of the year.

The dollar was trading close to three-and-a-half month lows against the euro, with EUR/USD dipping 0.03% to 1.3331.

Elsewhere, the greenback edged higher against the pound and the Swiss franc, with GBP/USD slipping 0.11% to 1.5661 and USD/CHFedging up 0.08% to trade at 0.9213. 

The greenback was broadly lower against its Australian, New Zealand and Canadian counterparts, with AUD/USD rising 0.50% to 0.9528,NZD/USD edging down 0.08% to 0.7974 and USD/CAD falling 0.43% to 1.0167.

In Australia, official data showed that the economy added 1,100 jobs in May, confounding expectations for a decline of 10,000 and the unemployment rate ticked down to 5.5% from 5.6% in April.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand kept rates unchanged at 2.5% following its latest policy meeting on Thursday and said it expected rates to remain on hold for the rest of this year.

The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was down 0.22% to 80.98. 

The U.S. was to release official data on retail sales and the weekly government report on initial jobless claims later in the trading day.
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