By: Barbara Zigah

With equity markets falling globally, investors have sought U.S. Treasuries and the safe haven assets; gold, the Swiss Franc and the Japanese Yen, and to some extent the U.S. Dollar, have all been pushed higher. Trading among the Swiss Franc and Japanese Yen, however, has been limited with speculation that their respective central banks could intervene. On Wednesday, the SNB moved into the forward markets, intervening in the rise of the Swiss Franc, and investors expect that the Bank of Japan may intervene today, given recent comments from the Finance Minister.

As a result, commodity-linked currencies, which include the common currency Euro, and the Australian and New Zealand Dollars have all been pushed lower in Asian trading. As reported at 2:54 p.m. in Tokyo, the Euro was trading against the U.S. Dollar at $1.4310, a decline of 0.2%; yesterday, the Euro had lost nearly 0.8%, trading at $1.4303, on news that the ECB had loaned $500 million from the ECB emergency Dollar fund to an unnamed Eurozone bank.

The U.S. Dollar was also higher against the Australian Dollar, trading 0.1% higher at $1.0359; likewise, the greenback was higher against the New Zealand Dollar, trading up 0.1% to $0.82818.