On Tuesday, Asian currencies mainly strengthened against the weakening US dollar. The Chinese yuan reached a new four-year high after the People's Bank of China fixed the rate.
On Tuesday, Asian currencies mainly strengthened. The Chinese yuan reached a new four-year high after a strong daily rate fix by the People's Bank of China and against the backdrop of the weakening US dollar.
The yuan pair to the dollar fell to an intraday low of 6.6775 — the lowest level since July 2022 — and then traded around 6.6781. Onshore yuan strengthened to 6.6791 per dollar. The rise followed the rate fix and China economic data: GDP grew 4.5% year-on-year in the third quarter, while retail sales accelerated in September. Stronger readings reduced expectations of aggressive stimulus. The People's Bank of China left base rates unchanged: 3.00% on the one-year and 3.50% on the five-year.
The dollar index fell 0.2% to 101.78. EUR/USD rose 0.2% to 1.1233, while GBP/USD added 0.20% to 1.3333.
The Indonesian rupiah recovered slightly: USD/IDR fell 0.1% to 17 995.7, but remained close to the 18 000 mark. The currency weakened after an MSCI warning about a possible downgrade of Indonesia's status from emerging market to standalone. The stock market index fell almost 12% on Friday and further on Monday, losing about 15% over two sessions. On Tuesday the index recovered around 3% after authorities' measures to reduce volatility. The two-day drop wiped out about 82 billion dollars of market capitalization.
The Indian rupee was almost unchanged and traded around 94.930. The Reserve Bank of India tightened control over large overseas investments exceeding 1 billion dollars to curb capital outflow. Since the beginning of the year the rupee has depreciated more than 5%.
The South Korean won strengthened: USD/KRW fell 0.42% to 1 326.51. USD/SGD fell 0.1% to 1.2786. AUD/USD rose 0.07% to 0.698, NZD/USD — 0.21% to 0.568. The yen also strengthened slightly: USD/JPY fell 0.18% to 158.19.