MW: Yen slips after Japanese ruling-party election defeat
By MarketWatch
TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- The yen sank against its major counterparts in Asian trading Monday, helped by gains in most of the region's major stock indexes, and following a poor showing by Japan's ruling party in upper-house elections Sunday.
Against the Japanese unit, the dollar (CUR_USDYEN 88.5300, -0.1200, -0.1354%) rose to ¥88.95 from ¥88.57 in late North American trading Friday. Earlier in the session, it rose as high as ¥89.15.
Japan' ruling Democratic Party of Japan lost more seats than expected, winning just 44 of them, far short of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's goal of 54, creating some uncertainty over the nation's policy direction. Read more on Japan election and market impact.
And as the low-yielding yen tends to slip whenever investors' appetite for risk rises, a regional stock market rally fueled further yen weakness. Benchmark indexes in Hong Kong, Sydney, Seoul and Mumbai all posted gains in afternoon trading, though Japan's own benchmark -- the Nikkei Stock Average -- turned negative in late trading after spending most of the day in the green.
In other currency action, the euro (CUR_EURYEN 111.1400, -0.9000, -0.8031%) bought ¥112.01, up from ¥111.99 Friday, after rising as high as ¥112.38.
The euro (CUR_EURUSD 1.2553, -0.0085, -0.6725%) fell to $1.2594 from $1.2644 late Friday, while the British pound (CUR_GBPUSD 1.4981, -0.0071, -0.4716%) declined to $1.5018 from $1.5067.
The dollar index (DXY 84.42, +0.47, +0.57%) , a measure tracking the performance of the U.S. unit against a basket of six major currencies, rose to 84.241 from 83.959.
