The safe haven Japanese Yen touched a 7-week trough versus the U.S. Dollar and held close to multi-year lows versus both the Pound Sterling and the Euro following news that the United States is no longer considering military action in Syria. Solid economic data from China which suggested that the economy there may now be stabilizing also helped lift higher risk, commodity-linked currencies. According to news outlets, though still somewhat skeptical, President Obama said that he would let a Russian-lead diplomatic proposal to the Syrian crisis play out longer before asking the U.S. Senate to consider the use of military intervention.
As reported at 4:20 a.m. (BST) in London, the USD/JPY pair traded at 100.38 Yen, sliding from a high of 100.55 Yen struck earlier but still maintaining the momentum for the uptrend. Traders expect that the greenback will stay above the key 100 Yen level so long as market players continue to price in the possibility of the Fed’s tapering of its quantitative easing program.
The EUR/JPY pair traded at a high of 133.375 Yen before easing back to 133.27 Yen but held close to a 3-year peak of 133.82 Yen while the GBP/JPY pair traded at 157.93 Yen, close to the earlier struck 4-year peak of 158.12 Yen. Recent Chinese data helped to lift the AUD/USD pair which traded at $.9320, a 7-week high.