20 Quotes by Kikuko Takeda

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.