960420

Most IMM currency

futures fall

in quiet trade

CHICAGO: IMM currency futures on Friday ended mostly lower after a slow, range-bound day spent retracing a portion of Thursday's gains.

"It's been a slow bleed - nothing but a little profit-taking," an IMM trader said.

The economic line-up was slim Friday and the market took a breather after Thursday's Bundesbank rate cut and before this weekend's G7 meeting in Washington DC, he said.

Currency traders said at this point they expect no market-moving developments from Sunday's G7 meeting.

"It's just really listless in here," the trader added. June yen rallied to a one-week high Thursday only to falter today, but its Friday losses were only a small portion of its Thursday gains, traders said. June posted an inside day on daily bar charts Friday, indicative of consolidation after that strong move Thursday.

"It's been so slow today," one IMM trader said. "After it didn't follow-through last night in European hours we sat there near steady early and never picked up any steam all day," she said. "All I can say is there were no big numbers and we're headed into the weekend."

One technician said the bullish dollar tone continues, with Thursday's gains merely a blip in the overall trend.

June Mexican pesos continued recent strength, adding to several months of gains and reaching the highest price since autumn 1995.

"I think they're starting to be bullish Mexico," said Holly Sherman, assistant vice president on the Sakura Dellsher Latin America trading desk.

"The Bolsa is at lifetime highs in the index and people are buying pesos to buy the bolsa and the two of them are fuelling into each other," Sherman said.

While technical momentum was strong in the peso, Sherman noted that the fundamental picture may be improving, as well.

"It's more than just technicals because I don't think you would have seen this strong of move for this length of time if it was purely technical," she said.

Break-away and run away gaps beneath the market stoked bullish technical sentiment, she said.

Earlier, traders had said June/September peso spreading was active.-Reuter