China and Taiwan will reopen on Monday.
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Mobile carrier SoftBank sank 9.53 percent to 4,164 yen and Sony was down 3.58 percent at 2,257 yen.
With investors pulling out of high-yielding – riskier – assets, safe havens such as the yen are benefiting. “We’re closely watching currency market moves with a sense of urgency”, the official said, on the condition of anonymity. Still, “the tone in Asia has generally been downbeat”. In Japan, Weston noted that volumes were up 120% above the 100-day average.
A stronger yen will hurt the profits of Japanese exporters, whose planning has been premised on a much weaker level of about 118 yen to the dollar, analysts say. The dollar was last up 0.4% at 112.86 yen, after falling to ¥110.99 on Thursday, the lowest level since October 31, 2014, when the Bank of Japan shocked markets by boosting its current bond-buying program. In currency markets, the dollar rose to 113.45 yen from 112.27, while the euro fell to $1.1243 from $1.1330.
European stock markets have closed higher after a hugely turbulent week.
So much for negative rates taking the steam out of a currency that has rallied from 120 against the greenback at the start of the month. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also said the government will take action if necessary as abrupt market moves aren’t desirable.
The nation hasn’t bought or sold currency to sway the yen’s price since a record intervention in 2011 helped stop its advance to a post-World War II record. The benchmark 10-year Japanese government-bond yield was flat at 0.005%.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday met during the trading day with central bank governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who denied that the Tokyo market’s nosedive this week is a result of the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) negative interest rate policy, but rather “excessive risk aversion” among global investors. These developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity and the labor market, although declines in longer-term interest rates and oil prices provide some offset.’ Foreign Exchange Forecast: What Threats Does the US Economy Face?
Benchmark U.S. crude was up $1.23 to $27.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
USA stocks moved higher in early trading Friday, seeking their first gain in a week, as beaten-down energy and financial companies rebounded. South Korea’s Kospi staged its biggest daily drop in almost four years, down 2.9 percent. For the overall week, though, European stocks are down sharply. The euro edged down 0.1 percent to $1.1308 but was not far from its overnight high of $1.1377, its loftiest peak since October 2015. Gold jumped 4.5 percent.
All of the Topix’s 33 subsectors fell, with securities firms underperforming.
Following a flurry of releases, including news that Germany expanded by a quarterly rate of 0.3 percent, there is a growing consensus that the eurozone also grew at the same 0.3 percent tick.
While she said she still expects the central bank to gradually hike interest rates this year as the labour market and economy continue to improve, she reiterated that policymakers were not on a “pre-set” path to return policy to “normal” given a worsening meltdown in global stock markets.
The yen’srise prompted the BOJ to make “rate check” calls to some banks, which sends a “strong warning shot” to markets that intervention may be on the way, Sassan Ghahramani, head of SGH Macro Advisors, said in a note Thursday. The Dow closed down 0.62 percent, while the S&P 500 lost just 0.02 percent and the Nasdaq added 0.35 percent. The stock added 65 cents to $2.89.
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The dollar hit a 16-month low against the yen on Thursday to put it on course for its worst week since the Lehman crisis as investors scrambled for relative safety, buying up gold and top-rated bonds and dumping stocks.
