Yen, Swiss franc up, dollar near its highest level in 5 months

A wave of risk aversion swept the markets on Friday, prompting investors to flock to traditional safe assets such as the Swiss franc and the yen after the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, while the dollar rose 0.03% to 106.19, and is hovering near its highest level in more than 5 months at 106.51.

According to Reuters, the markets reacted sharply to the escalation in the Middle East, led to huge sales in high-risk assets, caused oil and gold prices to rise, and sparked the rise of US Treasury bonds and safe haven currencies.

Swiss franc, a traditional safe-haven currency, remained 0.35% higher at 0.9089 to the dollar, after increasing 1% earlier in the session.

The movements in the Swiss franc were more pronounced against the euro, with the single currency declining 0.4% in its latest trading to 0.96685 francs, after declining 1.5% earlier.

Japanese yen rose approximately 0.2% to 154.38 yen to the dollar, after jumping more than 0.6%.

“The market is clearly tense,” said Moh Siong Sim, a currency analyst at the Bank of Singapore.

He continued, “I think that the markets at this stage are looking for safe investments… At the moment, we know that something has happened, but we need to understand more of the situation.”

At the same time, the risk-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars fell to their lowest levels in five months.

Australian dollar fell 0.3% in the latest trading to 0.64015 US dollars, while the New Zealand dollar fell 0.31% to 0.58825 US dollars.

Also reflecting investor anxiety, the highly volatile cryptocurrency Bitcoin fell by more than 5%, briefly slipping below the $60,000 level. In the latest trading, it fell approximately 1.8% to $62,381.

British pound fell 0.14% to $1.2420, on its way to a 0.2% loss during the week. The euro fell 0.07% to $1.06355 and is heading towards a slight weekly loss.