WASHINGTON: The Japanese yen further weakened against the dollar on Wednesday, hovering in a zone that last year triggered intervention, while the yuan slipped to a nine-month trough as concerns mounted about the extent of China’s slowdown.
The yen has hit the key 145 per dollar level for four sessions now, a zone that triggered heavy dollar selling by Japanese authorities in September and October last year. It last weakened 0.13% versus the greenback to 145.75 per dollar, after hitting 145.940 earlier in the session, a level not seen since November.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Tuesday authorities were not targeting absolute currency levels for intervention.
“Markets are concerned whether the Bank of Japan will intervene or whether dollar-yen needs to go all the way up to 150,” said Niels Christensen, chief analyst at Nordea.
“They have not been so loud in the last week, but the threat of intervention is why the market has been a little bit hesitant to push dollar-yen up.”
Elsewhere in Asia, the yuan touched its lowest level since November in both the onshore and offshore markets, falling as low as 7.3379.
That extended Tuesday’s decline following Chinese data that missed forecasts and prompted Beijing to deliver unexpected cuts to its key policy rates as authorities there sought to shore up an economy that has rapidly lost steam in recent months.
The Australian dollar, often used as a liquid proxy for the yuan, plumbed nine-month lows in response to the Chinese data.
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