Prompting Traders To Lighten

The dollar teetered near three-month lows versus the yen on Friday, as risks for a move towards record lows mounted before U.S. jobs data, keeping alive the threat of official intervention to weaken the Japanese currency. Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said on Friday speculative yen buying had gathered pace since last week and repeated that he was ready to act decisively to counter "one-sided" moves. The euro and the Australian dollar struggled to make much headway as a dip in Chinese non-manufacturing data weighed on sentiment. The dollar bought 76.19 yen, off this week's three-month low of 76.027. It was in a tight range but within easy reach of a record low around 75.31 set on October 31, when Japan launched a massive round of intervention to weaken the yen. The U.S. jobs ...

The euro and the Australian dollar struggled to make much headway in Asia on Friday as a dip in Chinese non-manufacturing data weighed on sentiment ahead of a key jobs report in the United States. China's non-manufacturing purchasing managers index fell to 52.9 in January from 56 the month before, prompting traders to lighten positions in risk currencies. That sent the euro to an intraday low of $1.3114, while the Aussie nudged down 0.2 percent to $1.0692. They recouped most of the losses after the HSBC China Services PMI showed the country's services sector expanded at a steady pace in January as new orders rose, but traders said flows were light ahead of the U.S. figures. "Today's rather mixed data suggests China will likely avoid a hard landing, but there are few reasons to be ...