Yen Advances Despite GDP Growth Slowdown

The Japanese yen continued to grow against the other major currencies for a third day today even after the worse than expected GDP data was released in Japan, as the risk-aversion still remains popular in the markets.
The euro weakened to the late November levels against the yen as the global stock markets demonstrated a drop. The markets are still under a strong influence of the Dubai’s debt problems and the new fiscal problems in Greece. Despite the optimistic statistics coming from the United States, other economies aren’t recovering as fast as expected.
Japanese GDP annual growth in the third quarter of 2009 was reported at 1.3 percent, down from 4.8 percent shown in the preliminary report and below the revised forecast of 2.8 percent. That’s a considerable decline in the recovery pace. During the economic downturns, investors and traders tend to buy the low-risk safe haven assets and sell the high-yielding one, switching from other currencies to the Japanese yen.
USD/JPY declined from 88.34 to 87.60 today; it closed at 90.52 last Friday. EUR/JPY went down from 129.91 to 129.36, reaching the lowest level since November 27 (128.77) earlier today. GBP/JPY fell from 143.71 to 142.80.

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