The USD has seen across the board losses in Asian trade, EUR/USD up at 1.4005 from a North American close Thursday around 1.3940, while GBP/USD is up at 1.6005 from around 1.5935.
The USD has certainly been hurt by the news that South Korea’s National Pension Fund, which is expected to manage 432 trln won ($343.7 bln) by the end of 2014, is to reduce its exposure to equities and US bonds. The news will only serve to heighten worries about the U.S. government’s ability to service it’s burgeoning debt.
Elsewhere, risk appetite remains in pretty good shape, and this will obviously be underminning the dollar. Sentiment will have been bolstered further by the news that Japan’s April industrial production surged 5.2% from March, much faster that the expected 3.3%, and the biggest increase since March 1953.
We’ve been hearing ongoing reports recently of China interest to sell EUR/USD just above 1.4000. Will be interesting to see whether that interest is there this morning.
