FOREX-Yen, Swiss franc rise on safety bids as Trump tariff fallout grips markets

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Investors scoop up the yen and Swiss franc

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Aussie hits five-year low, cryptocurrencies slide

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Markets leaning toward Fed cut in May

(Updates to Asia afternoon)

By Rae Wee

SINGAPORE, April 7 (Reuters) - Investors poured into safe havens like the yen and Swiss franc on Monday and heavily sold the risk-sensitive Australian dollar as the market rout from U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs deepened and fears of a global recession grew.s

Global markets were sent into a tailspin on Monday as Asian stocks and Wall Street futures plunged and investors wagered that the mounting risk of a deep economic downturn could lead to a cut in U.S. interest rates as early as May.

The dollar fell 0.63% against the yen to 145.92, after tumbling more than 1% earlier in the session, as the greenback extended its 2% slide against the Japanese currency from last week.

"The big theme has been selling USD/JPY because it's a good U.S. recession proxy and it's a good U.S. yields proxy and U.S. yields tanked," said Brent Donnelly, president of market maker and analytics firm Spectra Markets.

The Swiss franc jumped more than 0.8% to 0.8531 per dollar, building on its 2.3% surge against the U.S. currency last week.

Both the yen and the franc have emerged as significant winners in the aftermath of Trump's latest tariff salvo as investors dump riskier assets and flock to safe havens in a move that has also seen gold and government bonds catch a bid.

Meanwhile, the Aussie, often used as a proxy for risk appetite, tumbled to a five-year low early in the session, and was last trading 0.5% lower at $0.6014.

The New Zealand dollar eased 0.43% to $0.5572, having slid more than 1% earlier in the session.

"Things have gone from bad to worse," said Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG.

"If there isn't some sort of walking back of the announcements, then we're heading for a liquidity event and liquidity will get sucked out of these markets big time across all asset classes."

Trump's tariff announcements wiped out nearly $6 trillion in value from U.S. stocks last week. When asked about the impact, Trump on Sunday said that sometimes medicine was needed to fix things, adding that he was not intentionally engineering a market selloff.

TRADERS HOPE FOR RAPID U.S. RATE CUTS

More than 50 nations have reached out to the White House to begin trade talks. China, which has struck back with a slew of countermeasures including extra levies of 34% on all U.S. goods, said on Saturday "the market has spoken".

While the dollar is also typically known to be a safe haven asset, that status seems to be eroding as uncertainty over tariffs and concern over their impact on U.S. growth intensify.

Against a basket of currencies, the dollar was last at 102.64, having tumbled 1% last week.

The euro was up 0.18% at $1.0985, while sterling eased 0.1% to $1.28925.

"Given the U.S. is at the epicentre of the trade war, the USD has been suffering from outflows" with investors "looking ... to diversify away from U.S. assets," said Rodrigo Catril, senior FX strategist at National Australia Bank.

Traders have ramped up bets of more Federal Reserve rate cuts this year on the view policymakers would have to ease more aggressively to shore up growth in the world's largest economy.

Markets swung to imply an around 55% chance of a Fed cut in May, and futures now point to more than 100 basis points worth of rate cuts by December this year. Investors were previously expecting the Fed to keep rates on hold next month.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell cautioned on Friday it was still too soon to know what the right response from the central bank ought to be.

In Asia, the onshore yuan fell to a 2-1/2-month low of 7.3192 per dollar.

The pace of the yuan's decline was somewhat tempered by the central bank's support, as it continued to set the daily official midpoint at a level firmer than market projections.

The offshore yuan eased more than 0.3% to 7.3205 per dollar.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell to a five-month low of $76,638.54 as risk sentiment soured. Ether similarly sank to a six-month trough of $1,526.19. (Reporting by Rae Wee; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Edwina Gibbs)