Tag: Japan

Dollar Falls Versus Yen

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Monday’s large aftershock came exactly a month after an earthquake and tsunami flattened towns and damaged a nuclear plant in northern Japan. It’s the second strong aftershock to hit northern Japan in less than a week.

The dollar was worth 84.75 Japanese yen in late afternoon trading in New York, down from 84.89 Japanese yen late Friday.

The Japanese yen is considered a safe-haven currency and tends to get stronger during times of turmoil. Days after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the yen reached a new record high against the dollar.

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Top Stocks of 2012 Aflac (AFL)

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Aflac (NYSE: AFL) is best known in the U.S. for its ‘duck ads,’ but actually earns over 75% of its money from Japan. “In Japan, once people get AFL insurance they don’t drop it (which is very important in the life and health insurance industry) with a persistency rate of 95%.
AFL currently yields 2.4%, which is nice. It has however, increased that dividend in each of the last 27 years, and over the last 15 years it has done so at a compound annual rate of 20.7%.

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US Dollar Drops to 15 Month Low

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Whenever there has been a world crisis, it has been typical for foreigners to seek the safety of the US dollar. A common means to accomplish that has been to buy US Treasury debt. The typical example over the past couple of years is that the demand for US Treasury debt has increased at the various peaks of crises among the European Union nations such as Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and the like.

As a result of these surges in demand, the US Dollar Index, which reflects the value of the dollar against other currencies, tends to increase.

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Japan crisis puts world financial markets on edge

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NEW YORK -Fears over the escalating nuclear crisis in Japan overtook financial markets around the globe Tuesday, pushing stocks and other investments lower. The Japanese stock market lost 10 percent of its value, and Wall Street dropped steeply before bouncing back.

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The Euro Rose to a Three-Week High Against the Yen

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The euro rose to a three-week high against the yen as the European Central Bank member Jozef Makuch said it is “highly probable” that the bank will raise interest rates next week.

Japan’s currency weakened against all of its major counterparts on the prospect of the Bank of Japan leaving borrowing costs unchanged into 2012. Inflation in Germany stayed at the highest level in more than two years in March, a report is forecast to show today.

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