Yen soars, yuan and Aussie dollar decline as coronavirus concerns resurface

TOKYO- The yen recovered from three weeks of underperformance against greenback on Thursday. Upbeat activity followed after Hubei province in China reported an atrocious increase in the number of new coronavirus cases boosting markets and rallying investors to resort to safe-haven assets.

The Chinese yuan shed gains against the dollar as recent developments on coronavirus contagion posed risks for investors that the spread of virus still stands as a threat to the global economic forecast.

The Australian dollar AUD=D3, known to be a second resort for risk-exposed assets, plummeted with 0.19 loss t0 $0.6728. New Zealand dollar NZD=D3 sunk down with 0.27 setback to $0.6451.

On Thursday, Hubei reported a huge increase in new cases of coronavirus jumping from 1,638 up to 14,840 in a span of two days. In line with this, death rate jumped from 242 to 1,310.

Hubei’s health commission stated that the institution involved diagnosis using new method as the ambiguity of virus which originated from Chinese city of Wuhan last year and has been transmitted to 24 counties continues to drag markets for weeks.

“When you see numbers like this, you can’t help but move to risk-off trades, which means buy the yen and sell stocks,” said Ayako Sera of Mitsui Trust Bank in Tokyo.