Yen’s Freefall Triggers Rush to Buy Among Asia’s Amateur Traders
- HK dollar trades around highest level against yen since 2002
- Currency exchange store reports spike in yen-buying customers
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While global investors have dumped the Japanese yen in recent months, Gabriel Leung, who runs a small money exchange shop in Hong Kong, has noticed a surge in customers doing the exact opposite.
Amateur investors have been swapping their bills for yen at Leung’s Birdy Exchange in the city’s crowded, working-class neighborhood of Sham Shui Po, seeing a buying opportunity after the currency’s fall to its weakest levels against the Hong Kong dollar in two decades. Around 300 customers each day buy the yen, compared with less than a dozen such orders before the global sell-off began, he said.