Azerbaijan, Baku, April 2 / Trend /
The yen had the biggest weekly drop versus the dollar in more than a year as economic reports added to signs central banks in Europe and the U.S. are closer to raising interest rates as the global economy recovers, Bloomberg reported.
Japan's currency reached the weakest level since September amid concern the nation's economy will be hampered by the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami while U.S. unemployment fell to a two-year low.
The euro rose against the greenback and yen with the European Central Bank forecast to raise interest rates at its April 7 meeting for the first time since July 2008.
"What we saw, as far as the yen was concerned, was the positive U.S. report, increased interest-rate expectations," said Nick Bennenbroek, head of currency strategy at Wells Fargo & Co. in New York. "Our economics team does expect that the ECB going to deliver the rate hike that's been signaled fairly clearly."
The yen fell 3.4 percent against the dollar to 84.06, from 81.34 on March 25 and touched the weakest level since Sept. 24. It was the biggest weekly decline since Dec. 4, 2009. The Japanese currency fell 4.4 percent versus the euro to 119.66, the most since the five days ended Sept. 17. The euro strengthened 1.1 percent against the greenback to $1.4237.