The euro edged lower on profit-taking on Friday after Greece said 85.8 percent of private creditors had accepted its bond swap offer, moving closer to securing fresh funds needed to avoid a messy debt default. The single currency dipped about 30 pips or so after the announcement to an intraday low near $1.3224 and last stood at $1.3241, down 0.3 percent from late US trade on Thursday.
"It's a sell-the-fact type of reaction and there's some profit-taking," said Satoshi Okagawa, senior global markets analyst for Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp in Singapore. In a statement following closure of the offer late on Thursday, the Greek finance ministry said 172 billion euros in total had been tendered for the deal, which will force investors to take losses of as much as 74 percent on their holdings.
Some traders said there was a bit of disappointment the take-up was not high enough to avoid using the collective action clauses, but added there was still a lot of confusion in the market regarding the implications for currencies. One trader said the currency market may take cues from moves in euro zone debt markets and bond yields in Spain, Italy, and Portugal in the near-term.
The euro eased 0.1 percent against the yen compared to late US trade on Thursday to 108.17 yen, having dipped to as low as around 107.75 yen after Greece's announcement. The yen rose broadly after Greece's announcement and the dollar dipped to 81.46 yen at one point, retreating from a 9-1/2 month high of 81.899 yen on Friday on trading platform EBS. The dollar stood at 81.67 yen, up 0.2 percent on the day.
Earlier, the dollar rose against the yen, helped by yen-selling by Japanese importers, traders said. "Dollar/yen has hit the bottom and there are buyers across the board, betting on a long-term rise in the pair," said a trader for a Japanese bank in Tokyo. "Unless US jobs figures are very, very bad we will see this uptrend continue," he said.
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