The yen may rally further in 2019

[NEW YORK] The Japanese yen is set to end the year as the biggest winner against the US dollar among major currencies, after benefiting as investors sought out safety amid 2018's uncertainties.

The yen outperformed as the British pound and euro faced headwinds from Brexit and Italy's budget crisis, while the US-China trade war and plunging oil prices pressured commodity-related peers such as the Canadian dollar. The yen was up about 2.2 per cent on the year as of late Friday in New York, to 110.27 yen per dollar from 112.69. Meanwhile, the Japanese currency's share of global reserves rose to 5 per cent in the third quarter, the highest in 16 years.

If headwinds keep blowing in 2019, the yen could "win by default" to tack a fourth year on its streak of annual gains against the dollar, said Shahab Jalinoos, global head of foreign-exchange trading strategy at Credit Suisse Group AG.

"News in Japan has been less negative than it has been in some other places, at least relative to original expectations, over the course of 2018," Mr Jalinoos said in a telephone interview. "And that allowed the yen to play the role of a safe asset of sorts within the framework of a generally negative year for risky assets."

This year, the yen rose amid greenback weakness early on, but gave back those gains after the dollar turned things around in April. After touching its weakest level of the year against the greenback in October, the yen advanced in December amid volatility in equity markets.

In the absence of factors that could inspire investor confidence in risky assets and global growth in 2019, Mr Jalinoos expects the yen to remain a favorite. The average forecast from a Bloomberg survey sees the yen strengthening to around 109 per dollar by the end of 2019.

Marvin Barth of Barclays Plc, however, said the Japanese currency could gain even more - to 107 yen per buck by end-2019. Next year's yen advance will come as investors find themselves concentrated in dollar risk and look for sources of diversification in the Japanese currency, he said.

"The yen is quite undervalued from a long-run historical perspective," the Barclays head of foreign-exchange and emerging-market macro strategy research said in a telephone interview. The forecast of 107 is "not a huge appreciation in the yen, but it is outperforming other currencies."

BLOOMBERG