Asian currencies rose, with India’s rupee posting its best week in more than a decade, as global investors piled into emerging-market equities and the dollar slumped on concern the US will lose its top credit rating.
The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the 10 most-active regional currencies against the greenback, climbed to the highest level in more than four months on Friday.
The rupee rose 4.9 percent this week to 47.125 per dollar in Mumbai, its biggest weekly advance since March 1996, after a resounding election victory by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress Party boosted optimism he will see through reforms unopposed that are beneficial to the economy. India’s SENSEX index of stocks rallied 14 percent, the biggest weekly gain since 1992.
TAIWAN DOLLAR
The New Taiwan dollar completed a fifth weekly gain as the country took further measures to boost relations and trade with China, helping draw funds to Taiwanese assets.
“Taiwan is a capital goods and technology exporter to China and will get some support that way,” said Patrick Bennett, a Hong Kong-based currency strategist at Societe Generale SA. “This expansion of economic cooperation between Taiwan and China is something new and very positive. It’ll be a long-term positive for portfolio flows.”
The NT dollar rose 0.8 percent this week to NT$32.679 and reached a five-month high of NT$32.585 on Friday.
The South Korean won gained a similar proportion to 1,247.67. The Asia Dollar Index climbed for a fifth day to close at the highest level since October.
Elsewhere, the Malaysian ringgit rose 2.3 percent this week to 3.4705 per US dollar, near a four-month high. Singapore’s dollar added 1.8 percent to S$1.4412 and the Indonesian rupiah climbed 1.9 percent to 10,239.
US DOLLAR
The US dollar dropped this week against all 16 of the world’s most-traded currencies. The yen climbed to a nine-week high against the greenback on Friday.
The US dollar slid 0.8 percent to US$1.3998 per euro at 4:16pm on Friday in New York, from US$1.3890 on Thursday, after reaching US$1.4051, the weakest level since Jan. 2. The yen declined 0.4 percent to ¥94.80 per dollar from ¥94.41, after touching ¥93.86, the strongest level since March 19. The yen lost 1.2 percent to ¥132.71 versus the euro from ¥131.15.
The Canadian dollar advanced as much as 1.6 percent on Friday to C$1.1189, the strongest since Oct. 9, while New Zealand’s currency climbed to US$0.6238, the highest level since Oct. 21. The Australian dollar reached US$0.7867, the highest level since Oct. 2.
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