Japanese Shares Fell Bucking Rest of Asia Trend

March 19, 2015 Share Print 0

While most of Asia’s markets rose on Thursday, Japanese shares bucked the trend after the Federal Reserve’s comments sent the dollar tumbling against the yen.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 closed down 0.4% to 19,476.56 after hitting a 15-year intraday high of 19,557.17.

The dollar weakened after the Fed indicated that rates would rise more slowly over the next two years than it had forecast in December.

The dollar fell as low as 119.29 yen.

That marked its lowest since 27 February. But, the dollar recovered some ground to rise to 120.54 yen on the day.

A stronger yen is negative for Japanese exporters as it makes them less competitive overseas and erodes their profits when repatriated.

Shares of Nintendo, which rose over 21% on Wednesday after news of its plan to move into smartphone games, continued to rally, up nearly 12%.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.