Safe-haven currencies and gold fell on Friday and risk-sensitive currencies such as the Australian dollar rose as investors took comfort from a plan for talks between the United States and Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
The euro rose as the dollar weakened.
The yen and the Swiss franc, a rival safe haven, gained this week as investors worried about rising tensions on the Ukrainian border where Russia has deployed more than 100,000 troops. Western powers say Russia is looking for an excuse to invade, a charge Moscow rejects.
Sentiment improved after news late on Thursday that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had accepted an invitation to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov next week.
The dollar rose 0.3 percent against the yen and reached a high of 115.3 yen, after touching a two-week low of 114.79 early Friday.
But the dollar is still down 0.3 percent against the Japanese currency this week.
The dollar also rose 0.2 percent against the Swiss franc to 0.9216 francs, while the euro rose 0.1 percent against the Swiss currency.
The Chinese yuan hit its highest level since April 2018 in overseas markets.
The Euro continued its fluctuations this week depending on the news of the Ukrainian crisis and settled during the day at $1.136.
Other currencies sensitive to investor sentiment rose, with the Australian dollar rising 0.4 percent to 0.7228 per dollar, before giving up some of its gains.
Gold loses some of its luster
Also, gold fell slightly from the key level of 1900 dollars, on Friday, as concerns eased in the markets with the possibility of a meeting between Russia and the United States regarding the escalation in Ukraine, but the recent rise put the yellow metal on the path to achieving gains for the third week in a row.
Spot gold fell 0.5 percent to $1,887.71 an ounce by 1042 GMT, after hovering earlier near its highest level since June at $1,902.22 on its way to recording a weekly increase of nearly 1.5 percent.
And US gold futures fell 0.7 percent to $ 1889.20.
Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Britain, said the US-Russia meeting scheduled for next week is likely to limit gold’s rally.
As for other precious metals, the price of silver in spot transactions rose 0.3 percent to $23.73 an ounce, on its way to achieving weekly gains, and platinum fell 2.8 percent to $2300.68, on its way to falling this week.
Palladium fell 0.5 percent to $ 1083.63, after rising about 5.5 percent this week, recording the highest weekly gain since mid-January. (Archyde.com)