* Obama claims historic win in U.S. presidential election
* Dollar index rises after Tuesday's tumble
* Profit-taking, Japanese exporters support yen
By Rika Otsuka
TOKYO, Nov 5 (Reuters) - The dollar rose against a basket of
major currencies on Wednesday after posting its biggest one-day
slide in 13 years the previous day, as Democrat Barack Obama won
the U.S. presidential election.
Obama captured the White House on Tuesday after an
extraordinary two-year campaign, defeating Republican John McCain
to make history as the first black U.S. president.
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Dollar buying kicked in shortly after media projected a
victory by Obama as the outlook for a change in the ruling party
helped investors become slightly more hopeful about the outlook
for the United States.
But in general, Obama's win was in line with market
expectations and mostly neutral for the dollar in the near term,
traders said.
Osamu Takashima, chief currency analyst at Bank of
Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, said market players had been at the mercy
of the global market turmoil in the past few weeks, having had
little chance to take positions to bet on certain moves in the
dollar after the election.
"Unlike many presidential elections in the past, the result
of this poll should not move foreign exchange rates much, simply
because players do not have positions to unwind," Takashima said.
The dollar rose 0.8 percent against a basket of major
currencies to 85.268 <.DXY> after falling around 2.5 percent on
Tuesday for its biggest one-day drop in 13 years.
The dollar was also helped by news that the Democrats
expanded their majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress
in Tuesday's election to position themselves to quickly act on
much of the U.S. president-elect's ambitious agenda.
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The euro slid 1.0 percent to $1.2855 <EUR=> on trading
platform EBS.
The dollar dipped 0.2 percent against the yen to 99.50 yen
<JPY=>. Traders said dollar selling by Japanese exporters and
profit-taking helped lend support to the yen.
The dollar slid 3 percent against the euro on Tuesday for its
biggest one-day slide versus the euro since the launch of the
single European currency in 1999, according to Reuters data.
A rally in European and U.S. shares and a decline in dollar
funding costs helped spur buying of higher-yielding currencies
against the dollar and yen on Tuesday, market players said.
Tokyo's Nikkei climbed 4 percent on Wednesday, extended its
rebound from a 26-year intra-day low hit below 7,000 last month.
Traders said more signs of a thaw in money markets had been
warming up investor risk appetite.
"Market sentiment is swinging back from extreme pessimism,
although it's too early to say the market has turned around,"
said Tsutomu Soma, a senior manager of foreign assets at Okasan
Securities.
Investors need to see the dollar rise to 102 yen and the euro
stay above 130 yen before being convinced that the yen's rising
trend has run its course, traders said.
The euro fell 1.1 percent to 128.08 yen <EURJPY=R>.
Against the yen, major currencies dropped to multi-year lows
last month as fund managers dumped yen carry trades, in which
investors use the low-yielding yen to finance purchases of assets
offering higher returns elsewhere, as the global financial crisis
rocked markets.
(Additional reporting by Masayuki Kitano; Editing by Michael
Watson)
