FTSE 100 gains on G7 intervention muted by Libya fears

The yen fell broadly on Friday as European authorities sold the Japanese currency in the first co-ordinated Group of Seven intervention since 2000, but oil prices rose on fears of a supply shortage.

Traders remained sceptical about the impact of the intervention. Speculators such as hedge funds were keen to test the authorities’ resolve by buying into the yen’s sell-off, with the market still anticipating repatriation flows into Japan following last week’s earthquake and subsequent nuclear crisis to support the Japanese currency.

The Nikkei 225, which has fallen 10.2pc this week after tumbling 16pc in the first two days of trading, took comfort from the co-ordinated action by the G7 nations to close up 2.7pc. The rise was mirrored across Asian and European stock markets.

London’s index of leading shares was up 16 points – or 0.3pc – at 5,712.68 by mid morning as the prospect of increased violence in Libya after the United Nations authorised military strikes to curb Colonel Gaddafi left investors reluctant to move heavily back into equities. The FTSE 100 closed 1.8pc higher on Thursday but is still down 4.4pc so far this month.

Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Japan agreed with central banks of the United States, Britain and Canada as well as the European Central Bank to jointly intervene in the currency market.
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The Bank of France and the Bank of England confirmed they had been selling yen on Friday. The Bundesbank said they would participate but did not say whether they had acted. All of which pushed the euro up against the yen and the dollar.

The Japanese currency weakened against the dollar to around 81.50 yen, extending a rebound from a record low of 76.25 yen hit on Thursday.

Yoshihoko Noda, Japan’s finance minister, told reporters that the size of the intervention will be revealed in two months. Analysts estimated that the intervention could be as high as 750bn yen.

Tokyo market estimates put the BOJ’s earlier intervention at 2 trillion yen (£16bn) over the course of the day, similar to its big one-day bout of intervention in September.

Traders widely expected the US Federal Reserve to intervene when US markets open.

“European central banks have been intervening but it’s not going well,” said a London-based sales trader.

“The intervention needs to be concerted and aggressive….and even then I’m sceptical,” said another trader in London.

The surprise intervention – most in financial markets had expected Japan to act alone – underlines the threat that nations now see from Japan, the world’s third largest economy.

“They felt the necessity to do something collectively,” said Masafumi Yamamoto, a currency analyst at Barclays Capital in Tokyo. “The disaster itself clearly had a very negative impact on the economy but the movement of the yen was making it worse.”

The strength of the yen since the earthquake struck a week ago appears counter-intuitive, but Mr Yamamoto of Barclays said that the Japanese currency has historically served as a safe haven for investors during a crisis, even one in the country.

He added that some speculators will have been buying yen in the hope that Japanese insurance companies would have to liquidate foreign investments in order to bring yen home to help pay for repairing the country.

In an effort to calm investors, Japan’s biggest insurance companies, which are big owners of America debt, yesterday issued strong denials that they were preparing a sell-off of US Treasury bonds.