By: Hllel Fuld
The USD declined towards a 15-year low as the Japanese currency rose broadly on Friday and pushed down the EUR and higher-yielders, with trade made choppy by month-end business but still in ranges ahead of a Fed decision on easing.
The EUR fell 0.7 percent and the AUD 0.6 percent versus the yen, and the European currency triggered automatic sell orders as it headed down to 112.00 JPY, with more sell stops expected below that threshold.
One dealer stated yen demand at Tokyo's 0100 GMT fixing as well as rumots of dollar selling by overseas hedge funds who had bought the pair the day before were assisting to push the Japanese currency nearer to Monday's 15-year peak of 80.41 yen per dollar.
But the majors were broadly in the ranges that have confined them in the past few weeks as investors wait to see if the Fed says next week that it will indeed resume quantitative easing as many expect, and if so, in what capacity and over what time horizon.
"Overall the moves seem to be of the position unwinding variety," said a trader for a Japanese brokerage house.
Japanese shares also declined, with the benchmark Nikkei average down 1.7 percent, making some folks speculate it could cause the dollar's fall as the market might become cautious of a Japanese yen-selling initiative.
A falling share market is seen as one of the conditions which could force Japanese authorities to intervene, after they did so in September to counter a push higher in the JPY.
There was speculation, however, that there might be stop-loss sell orders below the 80.41 yen level, where a break would raise chances of an eventual test of the dollar's postwar record low of 79.75 yen.