Asian currencies mostly down, S'pore dollar at mercy of M&A
Asian currencies mostly down, S'pore dollar at mercy of M&A
SINGAPORE (Dow Jones): Most Asian currencies drifted slightly lower late Wednesday, but remained hemmed in within narrow ranges, as they mirrored the yen's movements, dealers said.
Resisting the yen's pressure, however, the Singapore dollar and the Thai baht were stronger.
The Indonesian rupiah ended lower Wednesday after the country's army chief warned President Abdurrahman Wahid not to dissolve Parliament as a way of preventing his impeachment.
Wahid has denied making a threat to dissolve Parliament last weekend, as reported in the local press, but the rumors have again helped destabilize the embattled rupiah.
The dollar closed at its day high of Rp 11,075 Wednesday, up from Tuesday's close at Rp 10,950.
The Singapore dollar took center stage on renewed concerns that Singapore Telecommunication Ltd.'s A$17 billion bid for Australia's Cable & Wireless Optus might be scuttled.
A report by the Melbourne Age newspaper that the Australian government will block SingTel's planned takeover of C&W Optus, unless the U.S. grants export licenses for military satellite technology, resurrected such fears.
The deal, which has contributed to the U.S. dollar's recent strength against the Singapore currency, led to a sharp pullback in the U.S. dollar to around S$1.8200 in early Asian trade.
Late Tuesday, the U.S. dollar was higher at S$1.8238.
Fears of intervention by the Monetary Authority of Singapore - which dealers believed had intervened to smooth the local dollar's decline last Friday and earlier this week - also kept participants wary of pushing the Singapore dollar down too aggressively.
A marginal rise in Malaysia's international reserves as of April 30, and reassurance by a senior government official that the government has no plans to review the ringgit peg for now assuaged fears of an imminent devaluation of the currency. This also contributed to the Singapore dollar's sharp rebound in early trading, market watchers said.
The South Korean won and the New Taiwan dollar fell slightly as the yen declined.
At 0940 GMT (4:40 p.m. Jakarta time), the dollar was quoted at Y121.54, above Y121.30 late Tuesday in New York.
But dollar-sales by South Korean exporters kept a rein on the won's losses, dealers said.
The dollar closed at 1,301.8 won, up slightly from 1,300.5 won Tuesday, after trading within a narrow band of 1,301.0 won to 1304.9 won.
Foreign equity fund inflows, lured partly by hopes that some Taiwan technology stocks will be included in the Morgan Stanley Capital International Provisional Index Series, helped counter the pressure from the yen, dealers said.
The U.S. dollar closed at NT$32.879, a shade higher than Tuesday's close of NT$32.875.
Fears of political violence ahead of next Monday's congressional and local elections dented the Philippine peso, dealers said.
Dollar short-covering by banks, too, contributed to the peso's decline. Earlier in the day, remittances of dollars from overseas Filipino workers had propped up the peso, dealers said.
The dollar closed at 50.650 pesos on the Philippine Dealing System, up from 50.460 pesos Tuesday.
The Thai currency strengthened to 45.490 baht per dollar, from 45.575 baht late Tuesday, as exporters unloaded the U.S. currency and foreign funds flowed into the local bourse, dealers said.