Early trade in New York: Dollar, yen dip on month-end rebalancing

NEW YORK: The dollar dropped on Friday while the Japanese yen sank to its lowest since mid-November as investors rebalanced portfolios for month-end.

Bitcoin also jumped to a two-week high as a movement by retail investors to pile into certain stocks expanded to cryptocurrencies.

The greenback has been largely rangebound against a basket of currencies for the past two weeks as investors evaluate whether a selloff that sent the currency down almost 7% last year is likely to continue. It fell 0.15% on Friday to 90.421 against a basket of currencies. The index is up 1.34% from a three-year low of 89.206 reached on Jan. 6.

The yen underperformed on Friday even as risk appetite worsened, hitting a two-month low versus the dollar and a nearly three-year low against the Swiss franc.

The dollar was last up 0.51% at 104.76 yen. It earlier rose to 104.94, approaching the 105 level, which Chandler says is psychologically important.

Bitcoin was boosted after Tesla Inc chief Elon Musk tagged the cryptocurrency in his Twitter biography. Musk wrote simply “#bitcoin” in his biography on the social media site. It was last up at 12% at $37,496.