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To: long-gone who wrote (17275)	9/2/1998 10:04:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116790

Dollar Falls vs Yen After Japanese Officials Hint Dollar Sales Dollar Falls vs Yen After Japanese Officials Hint Dollar Sales Tokyo, Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell against the yen after senior Japanese finance officials hinted Japan will act to prop up the yen further, traders said. Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Eisuke Sakakibara said the yen's weakening trend wasn't over, and warned investors to hold foreign currency-denominated bonds. Haruhiko Kuroda, director general of Finance Ministry's international bureau, also said Japan is ready to intervene whenever necessary. ''The two officials' jawboning worked,'' to push up the yen, said Norimitsu Takada, a senior trader at National Westminster Bank Plc. The dollar fell as low as 137.40 yen. It was recently quoted at 137.75 yen, down from 138.25 yen in late New York trading yesterday. It was quoted at 1.7449 marks, down from 1.7509 marks. Japanese exporters also sold dollars to bring their dollar profits home, accelerating the dollar's decline, traders said. The last time Japan intervened in the currency market, together with the U.S., was on June 17, a day after the yen plunged to a then eight-year low of 146.78 to the dollar. The concerted action helped send the dollar as low as 133.85 yen on June 19. While the dollar has fallen more than 4 percent against the yen this week, close to the level it touched after June's joint intervention, Sakakibara and Kuroda seemed to want to drag the dollar lower, said Takada. The weak yen ''hasn't been fully corrected - it will be corrected,'' Kuroda said. ''That's because Japan is the world's largest creditor.'' Added Sakakibara, ''Japanese investors holding foreign currency-denominated assets should take note of the risk. Such investors have been burned in the past.'' Falling Dollar The dollar failed to climb against the yen after the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday fell 45.06, or 0.6 percent, to 7782.37, amid concern economic tumult in emerging markets will eat into U.S. corporate profits. Many traders doubted the dollar will rise easily against the yen because ''investors who had lost their investments in Asia and Russia will keep selling dollars for yen to compensate for their losses,'' said Hiroshi Sakuma, a foreign exchange manager at Barclays Bank Plc. In recent months, many investors borrowed yen at low cost in Japan, where the overnight discount rate is a record low 0.5 percent, and converted yen to dollars to invest in high-yield financial assets. ''Those who had bought at the lower end of 130 yen can still realize gains by selling dollars at the higher end of 130 yen,'' said Sakuma. Sakuma said the yen will remain stronger because Japan's opposition parties moved closed to a compromise on taxpayer handouts to financially troubled banks that may clear the way for passage of legislation to rid the industry of 77 trillion yen ($562 billion) in problem loans. ''Passing bills needed to restore health of Japan's ailing banking industry quickly could make us easier to buy yen,'' said Sakuma. ''A chance that the dollar could fall below 136 yen is bigger than a chance it rises above 140 yen.'' In other trading, the dollar was quoted at 1.4417 Swiss francs, down from 1.4420 Swiss francs in late New York trading yesterday. The British pound was quoted at $1.6685, down from $1.6700 in New York. The mark was quoted at 78.91 yen, up from 78.74 yen.