Yen Losing its Haven Sheen to Gold on North Korea

The yen’s underperformance relative to gold may indicate the currency is losing its haven appeal, with North Korea firing a missile over Japan and testing nuclear weapons just across the sea.

While stronger versus the dollar this year, the yen has dropped 1.7 percent against a basket of other currencies since Feb. 13, when Kim Jong Un’s half-brother was murdered in Kuala Lumpur a day after North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. The divergence is even more pronounced when compared with the 8.9 percent advance in gold.