By Dec 2 Reuters Russias rouble and Turkeys lira led mild gains across Europe, Middle East and African currencies on Wednesday amid further progress towards a COVID19 vaccine, while South Africas rand lagged ahead of a court hearing on public sector wages.
The rouble rose as much as 0.5 to the dollar, while the lira added up to 0.8. The rand fell about 0.3.
The MSCIs index of emerging market currencies inched up to its highest level since April 2018.
Support for regional currencies came after the PfizerBioNTech COVID19 vaccine was approved for use in Britain, the first country in the world to do so.
While much of the optimism over a vaccine had already been baked into markets through November, some analysts said the approval pointed to upward pressure for most riskier assets in the nearterm.
We stick to our guns that equities and other risklinked assets are likely to continue marching north, while safehavens, the likes of the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen, could stay under selling interest, said Charalambos Pissouros, senior market analyst at JFD Group.
Foreign investors poured a record 76.5 billion into emerging market portfolios in November, the Institute of International Finance said in a report on Tuesday.
Evidence of the viruss economic impact still persisted. Turkeys government extended shortlabour pay benefits until the end of June in response to the coronavirus pandemic, while the countrys foreign trade deficit surged 155.4 in November as local…
