Investing.com - Asian currencies generally maintained some fo their strength on Wednesday, even as the Chinese yuan contined to slide against the USD and the Philippine peso hovered around 11-year lows.
The Philippine peso has been bucking the upwards trend in Asia. On Tuesday it hit an 11-year low after trade deficits for May were wider than expected and the country's central bank suggested that the coutnry would have a full-year current account deficit for the first time since 2003. The peso hovered around its record lows on Wednesday agains the USD, despite gainsing a small amount of ground in morning trade. The USD/PHP pair was down 0.02%, with one dollar now buying PHP50.760.
In China, home prices increased in 60 of the 70 markets that the govenrment tracks. Although increases were visible in most cities, they actually fell in the major centers like Beijing, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The USD/CNY pair rose 0.09%. The Chinese yuan has been losing ground against the greenback for more than a week. The People's Bank of China today set the reference rate for the currency at CNY6.7495.
The dollar edged higher. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, rose by 0.08% to 94.53.
NZD /USD continued to slide, trading at 0.7344, down 0.07% but reversing some losses from the day before after CPI came out flat on quarter in the second quarter, missing the 0.2% rise expected and at a 1.7% annual pace, less than the 1.9% increases expected.
Looking to Japan, USD/JPY dropped 0.04% to 112.03. The USD lost ground against the Aussie dollar, with the USD/AUD pair down 0.14%, as well as the Korean won, with the USD/KRW down 0.31%.