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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Asian Stocks Slide Boosts Yen

Doubt was cast with many investors earlier today on whether Japan's monetary stimulus will persist in weakening the currency after Yen demand was raised on the release of Japanese data. The data showed that domestic investors had sold foreign bonds for a fifth week.
Japan's Ministry of Finance released data which showed that investors had reduced their holdings of foreign debt by 331.9 billion Yen ($3.4 billion) in the week that ended on April 12th, after a net sale of 1.14 trillion Yen the week before. This had been the largest reduction in a year.

Effectively what this means is that it appears that funds are not flowing out of Japan at the moment. This is causing investors to reconsider the effectiveness of the Bank of Japan's (BoJ) policies. A key to more Yen weakness will be Japanese investors' willingness to purchase overseas assets.

Yen buying was also boosted by stock declines which saw investors turn to the Yen as a safe haven. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of shares earlier had dropped by 1.1%.

The Yen earlier today traded at 98.08 per Dollar and stood at 127.96 per Euro. The Euro advanced by 0.1% to $1.3050.

The Group of 20 (G-20) finance ministers and central bankers are due to meet in Washington today and Friday, ahead of weekend talks at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

The G-20 are expected to stick to a February pledge in which they agreed to "move more rapidly toward more market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange-rate flexibility."

In February their officials indicated that Japanese policy makers could stimulate the nation's economy, as long as they refrained from publicly advocating a weaker Yen.
 
 

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