Safe-harbour currencies like the yen and dollar traded near multi-month highs against the riskier Australian dollar and British pound on Tuesday, as fears grow that a rampant coronavirus variant could upend the global economic recovery.
The yen traded at 80.09 per Aussie dollar, close to the more-than-five-month high of 80.05 touched on Monday. It stood at 149.48 to the pound, approaching the almost-three-month top of 149.35 reached overnight.
The dollar touched an almost-eight-month high of $0.7317 per Aussie on Tuesday before trading at $0.7319, and changed hands at $1.36625 to sterling after hitting the highest since early February at $1.3655 in the previous session.
The Aussie accelerated declines as minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's policy meeting this month were seen by some economists as a sign the central bank may reverse a decision to taper stimulus.
The yen outpaced the dollar, rising to 109.07 per greenback on Monday for the first time since late May, helped by a precipitous slide in benchmark U.S. Treasury yields to as low as 1.1740% for the first time since mid-February. On Tuesday, one dollar bought 109.46 yen.
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