Yuan hits 14-month high against dollar—here's what's going on
The Chinese yuan just reached its strongest point against the US dollar in over a year, landing at 7.05 per dollar.
This jump is mostly because companies are swapping more dollars for yuan as the year wraps up, and the US dollar itself has been slipping lately.
Interestingly, this surge happened even though China's economy isn't exactly booming right now.
What's behind the numbers?
To keep things from getting too wild, China's central bank set a weaker-than-expected midpoint for the currency.
Experts think the yuan will probably stick close to these levels since exports matter so much to China.
Still, there are some real challenges at home—factory output and retail sales are down, new loans aren't picking up much, and people aren't borrowing as much because of ongoing property issues.