SINGAPORE, November 27: Asian currencies were mostly firmer against the dollar on Thursday as the US Thanksgiving public holiday removed some of the bears from the market.

US finance houses had been among the biggest sellers of the yen and South Korean won in recent days, dealers said.In their absence, attention focused on measures aimed at soothing Asian financial markets, which have been promised by Tokyo, Seoul and the Malaysian government.

"There's a kind of uneasy calm across the whole region," said Kanika Singh, regional economist at IDEA in Singapore.

"There's a lot of uncertainty. Markets are in a wait-and-see mood: waiting for talk and new policy announcements; waiting to see how governments follow up their proposals with action."

"They want to see the meat on the bones," agreed a dealer with a large European bank.

The yen firmed against the US dollar to around 127 late in the Asian afternoon and most other regional currencies followed suit, stabilising above recent lows.

The jury was still out on South Korea, where the government said on Wednesday it would take emergency steps to support bond and stock markets.

Dealers welcomed a promised 8.5 trillion won ($7.6 billion) of fresh funds for the markets but said it might not be enough.Most dealers had their eyes on the Korean stock market, which weakened a little. The won was steady at 1,119/20, almost unchanged from Wednesday's close.Currency markets in south-east Asia were very thin as the end of the month, and the approaching end of the financial year kept many players from taking positions.

"No one wants to take positions just yet. There are a lot of people who want to cut their losses and get out and there's also an increasing fear that credit rating agencies may become more active towards the end of the year in downgrading," said Singh.

"It's Limbo Land," said a dealer. "Plus there will be no Americans around today."

The Malaysian ringgit firmed to between 3.48/49, from around 3.5000 overnight, as news of a 500 million ringgit Malaysian standby fund to help prevent possible defaults by local stock brokerages helped Kuala Lumpur stocks rise almost five per cent.

But the ringgit was seen going lower longer term. "Ringgit is still the worrying currency, the weakest link of all the regionals at the moment. We are still seeing a lot of funds getting out of Malaysia," said another dealer.

The Indonesian rupiah was around 3,646/54 late afternoon, almost unchanged from Wednesday's Asian close, after intervention by the Indonesian central bank. But the outlook was for a possible slide to 3,700 this week.

The rupiah was expected to suffer from comments by Moody's rating agency on the state of Indonesia's short-term paper market.

A Moody's report cited lack of credit discipline, absence of alternate liquidity and low levels of financial disclosure as possible sources of problems.

The Thai baht steadied around 39.80/84 onshore from 40.00 on Wednesday. Dealers were cautious ahead of the announcement of government plans for rehabilitation of the country's financial sector, due to be announced in early December.The market is saying, `OK, let's wait and see if there's some concrete action'," said an analyst.

"But Thai companies are going to need to buy back dollars at some point to redeem loans. That will continue pressure on the currency."

The Singapore dollar was strong around 1.5905/25 to the US dollar with little sign of a new test of its recent lows.

The Taiwan dollar rose to 32.050/100 to the US dollar, from 32.30 at the open. The Hong Kong dollar was steady at 7.7300/310 versus 7.7295/305 on Wednesday as the firmer Tokyo stock market buoyed sentiment.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.