Plc in London. "There's been an immediate reaction and people will move to the sidelines to see how it all unfolds, but what we'll see will probably be a short-term disruption," said Upadhyaya, currency analyst at Putnam Investments in Boston. The yen retained most of the day's gains against the euro after a European official said markets had yet to digest policy-makers' remarks calling for the yen to rise against the euro. But the Japanese currency eased around half a yen from session highs against the dollar after the Thai news, tracking a sharp decline in the baht. Developments in Thailand overshadowed U.S. data earlier that showed a surprisingly large fall in housing starts and the rate of wholesale inflation that weighed on the dollar. The dollar had edged lower against the yen before the news of the Thai emergency and ended at ¥117.59, down from the previous session. Some strategists viewed the move as a simple knee-jerk reaction, as the more-liquid Japanese currency sometimes trades as a proxy for less flexible Asian currencies. "The yen was swept up in by a bit of guilt by association. It's the most liquid Asian currency, and clearly the coup did halt the negative momentum in dollar-yen, which fell sharply after the inflation and housing numbers," said Upadhyaya. Emerging currencies Emerging Asian currencies were hit harder. Against the Singapore dollar, the U.S. currency was up 0.3 percent at 1.5906 Singapore dollars and against the Philippine peso, the dollar was up 0.1 percent at 50.030 pesos. Some other emerging market currencies fell, including the Brazilian real, which lost 0.8 percent, and the Indonesian rupiah, which dropped 0.6 percent. Looking ahead, the market will watch to see whether the Thai crisis prompts investors to abandon other risky emerging market trades. In 1997, the currency's devaluation set off collapses in bonds and stocks from South Korea to Indonesia.and then grew into an international economic slowdown. The Asian financial crisis last decade was triggered in part because of the economies' dependence on short-term private capital from overseas, which poured into the region throughout the 1990s. Capital suddenly fled those countries, causing their currencies to plunge and making it harder for the countries to repay their foreign debt. As international investors shunned short-term government bonds, Russia could no longer finance its budget and defaulted on $40 billion of debt in August 1998. Investors said the coup is unlikely