Most emerging Asian currencies up

Most emerging Asian currencies extended gains on Monday as a surge in oil prices and expectations of more stimulus from central banks supported appetite for riskier assets. The South Korean won and the Taiwan dollar led regional gains on month-end corporate demand.
Singapore's dollar advanced as data showing December inflation was higher than expectations.
Crude prices extended gains in Asia after a 10 percent jump on Friday due to a huge snowstorm on the US East Coast and as investors scrambled to cover short positions.
Hope grew over possible monetary policy easing by major central banks.
The US Federal Reserve starts a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday. Investors are keeping an eye on whether the possibility of cooling inflation and recent global market turmoil could prompt the Fed to indicate a slower pace of interest rates rises.
The Bank of Japan will conclude its meeting late in the week and it is likely to cut its core consumer inflation forecast for the coming fiscal year to possibly below 1 percent, sources say.
A worse-than-expected drop in Japanese exports in December should keep the Bank of Japan under pressure to act as early as Friday, though most economists believe it will wait until April.
Last week, the European Central Bank signalled additional steps to spur inflation.
Still, traders and analysts doubted if emerging Asian currencies would continue to appreciate in the longer term, citing a weak outlook for the region's export-reliant economies unless global demand begins to improve.
"Improving market sentiment could see downward corrections in dollar/EM Asian FX continuing in the coming sessions," said Qi Gao, an emerging Asian currency strategist for Scotiabank in a note.
"However, we would prefer to add to our long dollar positions on dips."
The won rose as much as 0.7 percent to 1,192.0 per dollar, its strongest since January 8.
South Korea's exporters bought the currency for month-end settlements.
Offshore funds continued to unwind bearish bets in the second-worst performing Asian currency so far this year.
The won has a chart resistance area between 1,188 and 1,190, analysts said. A break of the zone may help the currency to strengthen to 1,180.1, the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement of its depreciation from October to January, they added.
The Taiwan dollar advanced up to 0.6 percent to 33.492 per the US dollar, its highest since January 15, on demand from exporters.
Foreign financial institutions also bought the island's currency with domestic stocks jumping 1.8 percent.
Local importers purchased the greenback for payments, limiting upside in the Taiwan dollar.
Cautious lingered over possible intervention by the central bank to stem volatilities, while the authority has not been spotted in the market yet, traders said.