Kikuko Takeda Quotations

What's on peoples' minds is the possibility of a slowdown of the U.S. economy given the accumulation of rate hikes in the past year and a half and on higher oil prices,

The price range for the past two weeks was a bit overdone. We need a little bit of time to adjust at this level.

Overall, the trading is thin due to closure of the U.S. financial markets.

Markets are rapidly abandoning the forecast for the Fed to increase rates to 4 percent by year-end, and are instead pricing in 3.75 percent. People are worrying lofty oil prices and Hurricane Katrina might hurt the U.S. economy when weaker data continue to come out.

(Traders) realize that markets may have oversold the currency and pushed U.S. Treasury yields too low on worries that the Katrina impact could hold the Fed back from lifting rates.

What we saw in Tokyo today shows that a small consolidation in the dollar is likely because of this technical resistance.

Besides a continuous unwinding of short-yen positions, which capped the dollar's rise, last week's weak (U.S.) economic figures that led to a fall in U.S. long-term interest rates also weighed down on the currency. But basically, the market is thin due to Christmas holiday in major countries.

The trend is still consolidation for the dollar because we saw a lot of weaker-than-expected data from the States at the beginning of this year.

The widening trade deficit is negative for the dollar. We see no way for the U.S. trade gap to narrow.

This is not the kind of investment they can keep on going, given the sheer scale of it and concerns about high oil prices and their impact on the global economy and corporate earnings.

The yen will be the loser among the major currencies. The BOJ is unlikely to raise rates next year while other central banks are increasing rates. The rate-gap story continues to lure investors away from the yen.

The Nikkei's rise since July has had limited impact on the yen's upside, but for the moment anyway, stock prices are supporting the yen.

It's hard to deny that capital outflows from Japan have been driving the yen's weakness.

In the long run, this change could be seen as meaningful.

Clearly one factor that has supported the dollar will disappear. So it's better to be cautious about the dollar's upside potential.

I don't think weather issues like hurricanes can breach the trading range.

The impact of the U.S. data was limited as the figure was not that good to keep the dollar on the 119 yen level or higher at this point.

The domestic market view is that Japan's monetary policy will be unchanged at this meeting and there won't be many signals in governor Fukui's speech for foreign investors trying to find some clues.

The market would like to see whether the Fed will raise interest rates more than two more times.

The Japanese yen will remain the weakest currency on the interest rate differentials. Pressure against the yen will be spreading.