Asia Currencies Drop This Week on Fed Minutes, Intervention Talk

Asian currencies dropped this week, led by Malaysia’s ringgit and South Korea’s won, on speculation the Federal Reserve won’t extend monetary easing and regional central banks will intervene to curb appreciation.

Policy makers should be ready to vary the pace of $85 billion a month of debt buying, which has boosted the supply of dollars and spurred inflows to emerging markets, according to minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s Jan. 29-30 meeting released Feb. 20. The Dollar Index rallied 0.8 percent that day and 0.5 percent the next. Central bank officials in South Korea and the Philippines said this week they would act to curb currency swings.