Investing.com - The Japanese yen jumped on Thursday in Asia after Apple Inc. issued a rare revenue warning that triggered a risk-aversion mood in markets.
The USD/JPY pair declined 1.5% to 107.21 by 11:23 GMT (04:23 GMT).
The gain in yen came after Apple lowered its forecast to $84 million in revenue for its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 29, underperforming analysts’ expectations of $91.5 billion.
The company initially forecasted revenue of between $89 billion and $93 billion.
Apple shares (NASDAQ:AAPL) tumbled in after-hours trade, as traders fled to the safety of the highly liquid yen. The yen also received some support this week amid weaker-than-expected PMI data out of China.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies slipped 0.2% to 96.155.
The Australian dollar, often considered a gauge of global risk appetite, fell 0.6% against the U.S. dollar to 0.6946.
The U.S.-Sino trade talks later this month could potentially improve the outlook for the Aussie dollar, some analysts said.
"These talks need to yield agreement to a reasonably comprehensive deal as a minimum prerequisite for a recovery in global risk asset sentiment and a stronger Australian dollar," said Ray Attrill, head of currency strategy at NAB in a note.
"If so, we’d expect Aussie dollar to be trading back reasonably comfortably above 0.70 before Q1 is out."
Elsewhere, the USD/CNY pair rose 0.2% to 6.8861 as the People's Bank of China (PBoC) has set the yuan reference rate for today at 6.8631, compared to yesterday's rate of 6.8482.