Yen Rises on Speculation Japanese Companies Bringing Home Funds

Yen Rises on Speculation Japanese Companies Bringing Home Funds
Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A By Ron Harui

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The yen strengthened against the euro and the dollar, ending four days of losses, on speculation Japanese companies are bringing back overseas earnings.

Japan’s currency also gained as exporters took advantage of its biggest weekly decline in a decade against the dollar to purchase it. The yen rose versus all of its 16 major counterparts on the prospect companies such as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Hitachi Ltd. will repatriate funds from share sales. The dollar weakened versus the euro before Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke speaks today in Washington.

“There’s talk the Japanese firms which are undertaking capital increases will repatriate the proceeds of overseas share offerings into yen over the next couple of weeks,” said Yuji Saito, head of the foreign-exchange group in Tokyo at Societe Generale SA, France’s third-largest bank. “This is a factor for buying the Japanese currency.”

The yen advanced to 133.98 per euro as of 6:34 a.m. in London from 134.54 in New York on Dec. 4. The currency climbed to 89.94 per dollar from 90.56, following a 4.5 percent slump last week, the most since February 1999. The dollar fell to $1.4893 per euro from $1.4858 on Dec. 4, when it rose to $1.4822, the strongest since Nov. 20.