Asian Currencies Under Heavy Pressure: Rupiah, Won and Ringgit Fall

Pressure returned to Asian currency markets on Tuesday (13 October 2026). Although the US dollar eased in morning trading, the greenback remained close to an 18-month high after surging in the previous session.

Refinitiv data at 9.17am Jakarta time showed that six of the 10 Asian currencies being tracked had weakened against the US dollar. Three gained, while one was unchanged.

The Taiwan dollar was the worst performer in morning trading, falling 0.40%, followed by the South Korean won, which slipped 0.35%.

The rupiah also remained in negative territory. Indonesia’s currency weakened 0.22% to Rp17,935 per US dollar.

The Philippine peso fell 0.13%, while the Chinese yuan and Malaysian ringgit each declined 0.05%.

By contrast, the Japanese yen posted the strongest gain, rising 0.20%. The Thai baht gained 0.06%, and the Singapore dollar edged up 0.01%.

The Vietnamese dong was unchanged against the US dollar.

The US dollar eased slightly in Asian trading on Tuesday morning. The US Dollar Index (DXY) was down 0.14% at 102.441.

That decline did little to alter the greenback’s position. In the previous session, the DXY had climbed 0.37% to 102.58, close to its highest level since April 2025.

Monday’s dollar gains were driven mainly by demand for safe-haven assets after conflict in the Middle East intensified again.

The Iran-backed Houthi group stepped up attacks on Saudi Arabia, while two oil tankers were also attacked over the weekend. The developments renewed concerns about the security of energy supplies.

Brent crude rose 2.3% to US$107.17 a barrel, approaching a two-week high. It is now around 45% more expensive than before the US-Israel war with Iran began.

Rising energy prices have revived inflation concerns, reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will need to maintain tight monetary policy.

Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said the US central bank needed to move “relatively quickly” towards tighter policy to curb what she described as increasingly widespread inflation.

Long positions in the dollar have also increased sharply. In the week ended 7 October, net dollar longs stood at about US$36 billion, up from US$8.4 billion just three weeks earlier.

Even so, the dollar’s scope for further gains is thought to be narrowing.

“We’re not sure that the latest wave of risk aversion will turn into a sustained dollar rally,” said Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, as quoted by Reuters.

Kruger said cooling US economic data, easing inflationary pressures and market expectations of Fed rate increases that have largely already been priced in could limit further dollar gains.

Market attention is now turning to the US consumer inflation report due on Wednesday local time.

The data is among the last important economic reports before the Fed’s policy meeting at the end of October.

According to CME FedWatch, market participants currently see a 78% chance that the Fed will hold interest rates at this month’s meeting, up from 51% a month earlier.

“The real focus this week is the CPI data, and the numbers are likely to remain quite hot,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, as quoted by Reuters.