Hong Kong 500 and 100 dollar banknotes are arranged for a photograph in Hong Kong, on April 23, 2020. (PAUL YEUNG / BLOOMBERG)

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority intervened for the sixth straight day to defend the city’s currency peg to the greenback, the longest run of operations in five years.

The currency is elevated due to its yield advantage over the greenback, demand for Chinese mainland company share sales and as banks hoard cash for regulatory checks

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority sold HK$1.434 billion (US$185 million) worth of local dollars on Friday, taking the total since it began intervening in April to HK$49.45 billion.

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The currency is elevated due to its yield advantage over the greenback, demand for Chinese mainland company share sales and as banks hoard cash for regulatory checks.

The city’s one-month borrowing costs known as Hibor have come down thanks to the intervention, with their premium over US interest rates more than halving since hitting the highest in more than two decades in April. That has made a trade that saw investors buy the Hong Kong dollar against the lower-yielding greenback less appealing.

The aggregate balance, a gauge of interbank liquidity, will rise to HK$123.56 billion. That’s more than double its level in March, and the highest since May 2018.

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