Bloomberg: Yen Falls to Record Low Against Euro on Speculation Rates to Stay at Zero

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — The yen slumped to a record low versus
the euro and fell against the dollar in Asia on speculation the
Bank of Japan will keep borrowing costs near zero percent as its
counterparts in Europe and the U.S. add to interest rate increases.

The Bank

of Japan has kept rates near zero since March 2001
while the European Central Bank on Dec. 1 lifted its benchmark for
the first time in five years. Federal Reserve policy makers will
probably raise their target rate for overnight loans between banks
for a 13th time tomorrow, according to a survey by Bloomberg News.

“There aren’t a lot of reasons to be aggressively buying the
yen,” said Craig Ferguson, a currency strategist in Melbourne at
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.

Against the euro, the yen fell to 143.06 as of 11:30 a.m. in
Tokyo, from 142.55 on Dec. 9 in New York, according to electronic
foreign-exchange dealing system EBS. It fell as far as 143.11, the
lowest since the euro started trading in 1998. The Japanese
currency also fell to 120.86 versus the dollar from 120.66.

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