Yen gains in Asia stocks slip

The safe-haven yen rose and the euro fell in Asian trade Wednesday as
falling stock prices injected a dose of caution into the market,
dealers said. The dollar slipped to 95.01 in Tokyo afternoon trade
from 95.24 in New York late Tuesday. The euro dropped to 1.4385
dollars against 1.4410 and to 136.68 yen from 137.24. 'Players
wanted to shed their positions ahead of the summer holidays,' Keiichi
Iguchi, a dealer at Resona Bank, told Dow Jones Newswires.
'Bearish stock performance was a good reason for them to sell'
riskier currencies, Iguchi said. Investors were waiting for more US
data due out later in the day including an employment report by
payrolls firm ADP as well as surveys of activity in the factory and
service sectors, ahead of official jobs data on Friday. The euro,
which has benefited from an increased market appetite for risk, gave
back some of its recent strong gains. 'There's a feeling that the
euro's spike ( recently) may be overdone,' said Yoshihisa Kanzaki, a
trader at Shinkin Central Bank. 'It's not a surprise that investors
took profit.' Analysts expect the European Central Bank and the
Bank of England to leave their key lending rates unchanged at record
lows on Thursday to give the region's economy more time to recover
from the recession. Against Asian currencies, the dollar rose to 1.
4348 Singapore dollars from 1.4335 a day earlier, to 1,224.40 South
Korean won from 1, 220.15, to 9,895.00 Indonesian rupiah from 9,
858.75 and to 32.72 Taiwan dollars from 32.69. At the same time it
slipped to 47.86 Philippine pesos from 47.90 while holding steady at
33.98 Thai baht.