The South Korean won and the Indonesian rupiah eased on Tuesday as interbank speculators covered dollar-short positions with the euro hit by a slew of stop-loss buying, but continuous inflows to Asia helped limit regional currencies' weakness.
"The uncertainty over the euro zone and the global economy may slow inflows to Asia, although flows could be quite volatile depending on sentiment," said Frances Cheung, a strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong.
"With the uncertainty, Asian currencies can suffer from time to time in the near term." Adding to the uncertainty over the outlook for the second half of the year for emerging Asian currencies, Australia's central bank trimmed its growth outlook for this year, while keeping interest rates on hold, as expected.
Emerging Asian currencies rose in the first half of the year, but their gains slowed in April-June on fears of a potential Greece debt default and signs of a slowing global economy. The won retreated as investors covered dollar-short positions and on a market rumour about dollar demand linked to Korea Exchange Bank's dividend payment to Lone Star.
The US buyout fund is set to secure a $466 million dividend payout from its stake in KEB. The rupiah shed 0.2 percent to 8,540 versus the greenback on dollar-short covering and corporate demand.
Investors also remained cautious over possible dollar-buying intervention by the central bank, with a dealer citing Bank Indonesia's aggressive dollar purchases around 8,518-8,525 in the previous session. On Monday, the central bank's deputy governor said it sees the rupiah averaging 8,650 per dollar. The ringgit slightly fell against the dollar as interbank speculators covered dollar-short positions. Still, rises in dollar/ringgit were capped ahead of some resistances such as 3.0135, around the bottom of the daily Ichimoku cloud.
Its 55-day moving average also stood at 3.0145.






















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