The Japanese yen rose against the U.S. dollar for the third day in a row today as the global recession boosted the demand for the «safe haven» currencies, decreasing the attractiveness of the high-yielding assets.

The yen also advanced significantly against the euro and the British pound that are vulnerable both to the yen and the dollar during the times of the risk-aversion. The popular high-yielders — Australian and New Zealand dollars — also fell against the Japanese currency after the final Q4 report for 2008 showed that the country’s economy declined at a fastest pace since 1974.

The latest Japanese report on GDP, while being obviously bad for Japan, is even worse for the other countries as it signals that extremely bad conditions will hurt every economy. More than that, this report was also positive for Japanese yen as the revised GDP change was slightly better than expected. Analysts believe that the global economic conditions will continue deteriorating this quarter.

USD/JPY fell from 97.42 to 96.06 as of 9:56 GMT today. EUR/JPY declined from 124.90 to 122.86. GBP/JPY went down from 134.88 to 132.46 today — the fourth bearish day for this currency pair.