Yen Losing Ground; Forex Markets Absorbing Bank of Japan Decision to Keep Interest Rates Unchanged

Author:: John Hardy
Publish date:: Jul 17, 2000 9:09 AM EDT

The dollar has continued to look firm over the weekend, while the Japanese yen lost ground against everything.

The

Bank of Japan

did not make

any change in its zero-interest-rate policy, and the market is now digesting the implications of this decision. The

Sogo

department store chain bankruptcy announced last week probably influenced the bank's decision.

The BOJ is now expected to defer any rate increase until September or October at the earliest. Japanese Economic Planning minister

Taichi Sakaiya

said he cannot predict when the bank will raise rates.

" It really wasn't a surprise," said Tom Nagle of

GNI

in London. "From a fundamental perspective, the move is just continuing and we need to see a break above 108.50 to see the next leg up to 109.50," he said. "We're looking for places to buy dollar/yen above 109 and 110," Nagle added.

The euro has just begun to lose ground and is opening in New York at $0.9350.

German wholesale prices for June grew less than expected with a rise of 0.3% for a year-on-year increase of 5.5%. The data was released this morning.

"We're selling rallies in the euro," said Nagle, "and looking at

falling below 94 towards 93.17."

With the yen losing ground, the euro has moved higher on a cross rate basis to open at 101.70 yen from Friday's 101.10. The cross rate shows the movement of a currency versus currencies other than the dollar.

The pound has remained weak, to open at $1.4910. Euro/sterling is firmer at 62.70 pence.

A member of the

Bank of England's

Monetary Policy Committee,

Sushil Wadhwani

, said in an interview in the Sunday

Times of London

that he sees a fair value for the pound in Deutschemark terms at 2.80 to 3.0DM per pound. This is not far from the current level of 3.13DM per pound and does not go along with repeated claims that the pound is hugely overvalued against its European competitors.

Dollar/Swiss franc is steady at 1.6520 and the euro/Swiss franc is also lower at SF1.5460.

U.S. dollar/Canada is weaker at C$1.4830.

The Australian dollar is opening steady after touching six week lows earlier in the overnight session. Currently the A$ is at $0.5850, near Friday's close, having recovered from lows of $0.5820.

The New Zealand dollar is steady at $0.4600.

The South African rand is unchanged at 6.87.

The Polish zloty is firmer at 4.35, supported by expected inflows from the sale of a stake in the Polish telecommunications company,

TPSA

The Indonesian rupiah is little changed at 9,475.

The Mexican peso has held Friday levels at 9.36.