The yen is surging

The Japanese yen is surging as stocks around the world are lower.

The currency is up by 0.8% at 101.95 per dollar as of 7:41 a.m. ET.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng (-3.4%) was hit hard in Asia, and Spain's IBEX (-2.5%) leads the losses in Europe. S&P 500 futures are down 14.75 points at 2,101.25.

Investors generally consider the yen to be a safe-haven currency, and so they tend to rush into it when things get rocky in the markets.

As for the rest of the world, here's the scoreboard as of 7:44 a.m. ET.

• The Russian ruble is down 0.6% at 65.2324 per dollar as Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, is lower by 2.2% at $46.94 a barrel.
• The euro is weaker by 0.1% at 1.1222 against the dollar. Separately, the EU opened an unprecedented ethics investigation into Jose Manuel Barroso taking a job at Goldman Sachs.
• The US dollar index is little changed at 95.36 ahead of a light data day. However, Atlanta's Dennis Lockhart, Minneapolis' Neel Kashkari, and Fed Gov. Lael Brainard will speak at 8:05 a.m., 1 p.m., and 1:15 p.m., respectively.
• The British pound is little changed at 1.3272 against the dollar.
• The Australian dollar is down 0.5% at .7505 per dollar.