Foreign Exchange News

A consumer watchdog body in Slovenia says the country's transition to the euro is going smoothly but many people have complained of price rises. "We've had a lot more complaints since 1 January," said Breda Kutin, head of the Slovenian Consumers' Association. She said most complaints concerned prices in the service sector, such as cafes, hairdressers and car parks. Slovenia, formerly part of communist Yugoslavia, became the 13th member of the euro zone on 1 January. The European Commission s ...

LONDON (AFX) - The dollar surged on the news that the US economy created more jobs than anticipated during December. The Labor Department reported that the US economy added 167,000 jobs in December, more than double what the market anticipated. There was further good news that the number of jobs added in October and November, was revised up by 29,000 to a cumulative two-month total of 240,000.  ...

HONG KONG (XFN-ASIA) - The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said it is important to maintain the exchange rate using the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the US dollar for the sake of financial stability. HKMA's chief executive Joseph Yam said it is hard to adopt and maintain a flexible exchange rate for the Hong Kong dollar, given the impact of hedge funds and strong capital inflows, and that it is best to ...

SINGAPORE (XFN-ASIA) - The US dollar was weaker against the yen and euro in afternoon trade here ahead of tonight's key US non-farm payrolls data, dealers said. At 3.19 pm here (0719 GMT), the US dollar was trading at 118.24 yen, down from 118.53 in Sydney more than four hours earlier, while the euro was at 1.3082 usd, up from 1.3081 in Sydney trade. "Obviously, either an unexpected upside  ...

WELLINGTON (XFN-ASIA) - Share prices closed higher in quiet trade, with the market sustained by a fall in oil prices, dealers said. The benchmark NZX-50 gross index rose 6.30 points to 4,035.26 on turnover worth 54.9 mln nzd. Rises outnumbered falls 42 to 41 among 139 stocks traded. "There's really not too many stories, it's all very, very quiet," First NZ Capital broker James Snell sa ...

SYDNEY (XFN-ASIA) - The US dollar was lower against the yen here and softer against the euro as traders position ahead of tonight's key non-farm payrolls report for December, dealers said. At 1:31 pm Sydney time (0231 GMT), the dollar was trading at 118.53 yen against 118.94 in Sydney morning trade while the euro was at 1.3081 usd from 1.3089 earlier. Dealers said market attention will initially ...

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - The central bank has set the yuan central parity rate at 7.8097 to the dollar, according to the National Foreign Exchange Center. The rate, published on the official Chinamoney website, compares with the midpoint of 7.8073 set the previous trading day. The People's Bank of China (PBoC) started setting a daily central parity rate on Jan 4. On July 21, 2005, China freed the y ...

FRANKFURT (AFX) - The European Central Bank said net foreign currency reserves in the eurosystem fell by 4.8 bln to 147.4 bln in the week ending Dec 29, from the week earlier. The ECB added that banknotes in circulation within the eurosystem -- which comprises the ECB and the central banks of the euro zone countries -- increased by 0.2 bln eur to 682.2 bln, while the gold position increased by 2. ...

NEW YORK (AFX) - Stocks pulled back Thursday after retailers released holiday sales reports that were worse than expected, raising concerns on Wall Street that the economy might be slowing more than thought. Retail chains like Federated Department Stores Inc., Gap Inc., Limited Brands Inc., and Target Corp. all posted lackluster same-store sales during the key month of December. There were al ...

Eurozone countries should exploit an economic recovery to cut their budget deficits and make labour markets more competitive, a think tank has said. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said governments must focus on reforms to consolidate their economic progress. Of euro members, excluding newly joined Slovenia, only Germany was planning "ambitious" deficit cuts, it said. Germany has raised its value added tax to try and improve its public finances. 'Rough ride' ...