Dollar Rises Despite Bid by 4 Nations to Keep It Stable
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NEW YORK — Central banks of four nations mounted an attack on the dollar today but the currency held steady.
The dollar’s rise to the highest in nearly three months triggered intervention by the Federal Reserve and the central banks of West Germany, Austria and Switzerland, traders said. The trading partners acted under prior agreements to hold the dollar’s value in check to help cut the U.S. trade deficit.
Even after the concerted selling, the dollar was up nearly a pfennig at 1.8265 marks from its Friday New York close of 1.8175 marks, but it was down from its high of 1.8325 reached early today.
The action on the foreign exchange markets upstaged an impressive stock market rally in Japan on the first trading day after its emperor died.
The Tokyo stock market, which some had feared might fall apart on the news of Emperor Hirohito’s death, instead surged to a record high. The Nikkei index rose 468.85 points, or 1.55%, to close at 30,678.39, its best one-day rise in a year.
Similarly, the yen shrugged off the historic event, edging up to 126.12 yen against the dollar in New York from 126.75 Friday.
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