The Japanese yen hit a seven-week high against the US dollar and was on track for its largest daily gain since May 2017 as investors nervous about the spread of the coronavirus in the United States piled into the safe-haven currency.
Hopes that the outbreak can be contained in China have been replaced this week by worries that infections are spreading around the globe. Measures to contain the virus have wreaked havoc on supply chains, the world's economy and financial markets.
Equity markets have tumbled, with the S&P 500 on course for the worst performance in a week since the 2008 financial crisis, as investors dumped riskier assets and piled into safe-haven currencies. That sent the Japanese yen to a seven-week high of 107.77 versus the dollar, last trading up 1.22%.
"The yen is significantly stronger from where it was even last week, when I was hearing people saying that the yen wasn't a safe-haven anymore. We're now back to appropriate levels," said Mark McCormick, global head of foreign exchange strategy at TD Securities.
With investors pulling out of higher-yielding and riskier currencies, that has helped the euro soar to a 3-1/2-week high of $1.105. It was last roughly flat at $1.100.
The US dollar index was last down 0.093% to 98.349. Against the pound the dollar was down 0.79% to 1.278.
Comments
Comments are closed.