Yen, Swiss franc rise versus dollar as U.S. stocks sell off
FILE PHOTO: A woman counts U.S. dollar bills at her home in Buenos Aires, Argentina August 28, 2018. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
Get Alerts AAPL Hot Sheet
Overall Analyst Rating:
NEUTRAL (= Flat)
Dividend Yield: 0.5%
Revenue Growth %: -4.3%
Join SI Premium – FREE
By Kate Duguid
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Japanese yen and Swiss franc strengthened against the dollar on Thursday afternoon as a selloff in the U.S. stock market drove investors into the safe-haven currencies.
Big falls in Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) pushed Wall Street's main indexes lower on Thursday, on track for their deepest one-day dives since June. Analysts said that the move was broadly driven by weak economic data highlighting concerns about a long and difficult recovery.
The dollar was 0.1% lower against the yen
About the dollar-yen pair, analysts at Action Economics wrote: "As the risk-backdrop turned decidedly negative, the risk-sensitive pairing sold off to 106.02 lows. A sharp slide on Wall Street, along with lower Treasury yields weighed."
A report from the Labor Department showed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week. But the figure still remains extraordinarily high, one of several signs that the labor market recovery has been losing steam as the COVID-19 pandemic continues and government support lapses. And some analysts argued that a seasonal adjustment may have made the drop appear bigger than it was.
"The seasonal adjustment issue means we cannot really compare initial claims to the prior reads at this moment," said Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets.
"Our takeaway is that the adjustment methodology makes the drop in initial claims appear larger than it actually was."
On Friday, the Labor Department will release its closely watched jobs report for the month of August.
Against the euro
The dollar index <=USD> was last up 0.09% to 92.78. It is 1.12% higher from the bottom hit on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Kate Duguid in New York and Olga Cotaga in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Serious News for Serious Traders! Try StreetInsider.com Premium Free!
You May Also Be Interested In
- NBA in talks with Amazon, Youtube on new streaming package - WSJ
- Indian IT firm Tech Mahindra's shares jump most in 8 years on turnaround plan
- Ukraine court orders agriculture minister to be taken into custody
Create E-mail Alert Related Categories
Forex, ReutersRelated Entities
BMO Capital, European Central BankSign up for StreetInsider Free!
Receive full access to all new and archived articles, unlimited portfolio tracking, e-mail alerts, custom newswires and RSS feeds - and more!