By Kevin Buckland and Harry Robertson
TOKYO/LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar fell
on Tuesday as receding fears of a full-blown banking crisis
slowed demand for so-called safe haven assets.
But the yen rallied, despite traditionally also being a safe
haven, with analysts pointing to a pick-up in flows ahead of the
end of Japan's fiscal year on Friday.
The dollar fell as low as 130.51 yen , and was last
off 0.29% at 131.2 as the Japanese currency rose. That undid
some of the dollar's 0.64% jump against the yen in the previous
session, which tracked a large rise U.S. government bond yields.
Analysts said Japanese companies were likely selling foreign
bonds to bolster their balance sheets.
"The time of the year - the Japanese fiscal end - I think
there are some flows from Japanese repatriating," said Bart
Wakabayashi, branch manager at State Street in Tokyo.
"If that's it, it's pretty much a one-off, and then we'll
get back to basics, which is essentially following yields."
Elsewhere, the euro and pound rose as markets took solace
from First Citizens BancShares' agreement to buy all of failed
lender Silicon Valley Bank's deposits and loans, and the fact
that no further cracks have emerged in global banking.
The euro was last up 0.27% to $1.083. Sterling was 0.31% higher at $1.233, just below a two-month
high.
"Markets are just generally a little bit risk-positive … and
the default position against that background is that the dollar
drifts lower," said Adam Cole, chief currency strategist at RBC
Capital Markets.
"We could be in this kind of risk-on, risk-off environment
for a couple of months," Cole added.
The U.S. dollar index - which gauges the currency
against six peers, including the yen - fell 0.19% to 102.56,
after a 0.26% drop on Monday.
Elsewhere, bitcoin slipped slightly to around
$27,055, after a 3% slide the previous day, amid problems at the
world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.
The company and its founder have been sued by the U.S.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The exchange also
suffered a technical glitch on Monday that forced it to
temporarily suspend some operations.
The risk-sensitive Australian dollar rose sharply, getting
an additional boost from better-than-expected retail sales data.
It was last up 0.56% to $0.669 .
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(Reporting by Kevin Buckland and Harry Robertson; Editing by
Sam Holmes, Sonali Paul and Alexander Smith)
Harry.Robertson@thomsonreuters.com))
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