By Alex Ho
Investing.com - The U.S. dollar and the Chinese yuan were little changed on Wednesday in Asia despite concerns surrounding the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.
The U.S. dollar index inched up 0.08% to 97.390 by 1:15 AM ET (05:15 GMT).
As of Wednesday morning, Chinese authorities confirmed that at least nine people, all in Wuhan, have died after contracting the virus and a total of 15 medical personnel have been infected.
The virus, which causes a type of pneumonia, has spread to multiple countries outside China, including the U.S. and Japan.
"The obvious comparison people are making is with the SARS. While we still don't know how lethal the new virus will be, my sense at the moment is that markets are not taking it as dire as SARS," said Kyosuke Suzuki, director of currencies at Societe Generale, in a Reuters report.
"Back then, virtually every company was banning travel to Hong Kong. We haven't seen that kind of reaction yet," he said.
The USD/CNY pair last traded at 6.9013, down 0.03%.
The GBP/USD pair inched up 0.1% to 1.3056 on strong employment data. The number of people in employment rose by 208,000 to 32.90 million in the three months to November, official data showed. It was the biggest increase since the three months to January 2019.
The AUD/USD pair and the NZD/USD pair both dropped 0.1%.
The USD/JPY pair gained 0.2% to 110.04.